Rise of the Archer
by Mrs.InsaneOne
Summary: A curious Harry sneaks his cousin's discarded gaming equipment into his cupboard and promptly falls in love with the world inside Sword Art Online the first time he logs into the game. No Pairings. Pre-Hogwarts. Smart!Harry, Slytherinish!Harry, Shy!Harry, Stubborn!Harry, & Paternal!Klein. Full summary & warnings inside.
1. Finders, Keepers

**Full Summary:** _Dudley has always been easily frustrated and when a language barrier prevents him from playing his new game, he promptly tosses out the game and his computer while in a snit. A curious Harry sneaks the discarded gaming equipment into his cupboard and promptly falls in love with the world inside Sword Art Online the first time he logs into the game. A distaste of knives and swords sees him taking up a Bow instead and an_ _adventurer_ _is born in the heart of a wizard when he slays his first Dungeon Monster. Pre-Hogwarts, Smart!Harry, Slytherinish!Harry, Shy!Harry, Stubborn!Harry, & Paternal!Klein. _

**Disclaimer:** _Usually, I write out a very specific disclaimer explaining exactly what it is I don't own but once again I find myself not really interested in doing so for this story as it's very tedious. Suffice it to say I own nothing that was created by anyone else and I'm making no money whatsoever from the writing of this FanFiction._

 **Warnings:** _Mild to moderate violence, character death, foul language, alternate universe (i.e. kiss HP canon goodbye), angst, drama, starts pre-Hogwarts Era, original Quests, some minor religious themes, and who knows what else._

 **AN:** _Like I did for Magic Online, the timelines of both SAO and HP were shifted in order to align the story line the way I wanted it to go for this story. HP's timeline was bumped forward three decades (meaning that Harry was born in the year 2010, orphaned in 2011, and due to go to Hogwarts in 2021 – though I did leave Dumbledore's personal timeline alone, so he's still old as dirt) and SAO's timeline was moved back a measly three years (Kirito born in 2005 and the players trapped in SAO in 2019)._

 _I've also once again set Dudley's age as three years older than Harry; this is to make it more reasonable for Dudley to have gotten a NERDLES implanted at the start of the story since he would've only been a year younger than the cut off (those under thirteen being banned from having NERDLES implanted according to the SAO world rules). And while Vernon could probably spend any amount he wanted to get Dudley one early, I can't see a nine year old as being over looked while an overweight twelve year old might be. This also gave the Dursleys more time as a family together before Harry was thrust into their life and therefore more reason for them (Dudley in particular) to resent Harry's presence._

 _Next, all characters and players within the game [SAO] will speak Japanese (except in the instances where Harry or another Human Player initiates a conversation in English with a Player) and_ _ **all**_ _dialogue in the story that is meant to represent spoken Japanese will be written in italics in order to distinguish it from Harry's spoken English – regardless of whose point of view is being used. As usual, I will limit the amount of actual Japanese used in the story so as not to butcher the language and what I do use will be simple keywords meant to add ambiance to the story._

 _Another change I made was to extend the beta trial out by a full 30 days; meaning that instead of just a single month of testing, there were two. This was to give Harry more than enough time to invest himself in the game instead of limiting him to a mere three weeks the original month would have left him with. I'm pretty certain I did the same thing in Magic Online but at the time it had slipped my mind that the Beta Test was only supposed to last a single month whereas this time the additional four weeks of testing were intentional and will mean that the Beta Testers got a few floors higher than the Eighth Floor they'd reached in canon before the end of the beta run as a result._

 _As usual, translations for any Japanese words and gaming acronyms/terminology used in each chapter will be provided at the end of each chapter for quick reference for those who need it and where it can be easily skipped over by those who don't. If that kind of thing annoys you, then you're more than welcome to close out this window and look for another story to read because I'm_ _ **not**_ _going to stop doing it since it's something I've consistently done for all of my stories and because it helps_ _ **me**_ _remember what everything means._

 _And lastly, I drew upon my extensively limited experiences with RPGs in order to write the 'game' portions of the story and based the 'game action sequences' upon my experiences in those games that I've played (drawing mostly from SIMS II, Fable: The Lost Chapters, Zork Nemesis, War Craft I-III, and multiple versions of Final Fantasy, Pokémon, Zelda, and Animal Crossing). I should also note that I'm a dedicated solo player and I have very little experience playing in a guild or a party (mostly because I'm a rather antisocial person by nature) and so any group battles may seem stilted since the only group experience I have comes from playing Final Fantasy where groups are a given even if it's just one person playing the entire group._

 **AN2:** _The plot line for this story was inspired by my story, Magic Online (the first SAO/HP crossover I wrote) and as such, there will be occasional instances where I reused a few plot-points from Magic Online for this story because I really liked that particular plot-point or because that plot-point made the most sense to me. So, for those of you who've read Magic Online before reading this, the bits and pieces you might recognize of that story in this story are there on purpose but I didn't steal them since they were mine to begin with since I am the original author of Magic Online._

 **AN3:** _This story is self-beta'd; so there may be occasional grammatical or spelling errors that crop up every now and then and for those I apologize in advance._

* * *

 **Rise of the Archer**  
Chapter One: Finders, Keepers

 _Wednesday, August 07, 2019 6:45 PM  
No. 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey_

The relative peace of a nondescript suburban street filled with lot after lot of near-identical houses known as Privet Drive in Little Whinging, Surrey of England would be broken shortly after the evening meal on the night of August seventh by the frustrated yell of an overweight preteen coming from Number Four. A few curtains would twitch in curiosity but most of the people who lived in the area just ignored the commotion since raised voices coming from Number Four were a frequent, and very annoying, occurrence.

" **Argh! Stupid game! I hate you!** "

Hidden inside of the boot cupboard that had been built beneath the stairs of Number Four, a nine year old Harry Potter glanced up at the ceiling of his unconventional room as he listened to his older cousin banging about in his bedroom upstairs. Long used to his cousin's frequent tantrums, Harry quickly lost interest in the commotion going on above his head and returned his gaze to the purloined storybook that he'd nicked from amongst the unwanted and mostly broken junk that filled his cousin's second bedroom.

His reading would be disturbed a second time when his heavyset cousin stomped down the stairs; each crashing footstep shaking loose a stream of plaster dust and the occasional spider that inevitably got all over Harry's hair, the book he'd been trying to read, and his bed. Letting out a huff of irritation, Harry carefully shooed the spiders away – because while Harry disliked the eight-legged arachnids, they did at least keep the other, less savory bugs (like roaches and flies) away – before he tipped the book upright to knock the dust free. He then slipped a folded piece of paper between the pages to mark his spot and tucked it under his pillow before he cleaned himself and the bed off.

He'd just remade his bed when his cousin stormed back up the stairs and knocked loose more dust and Harry growled under his breath because now he was going to have to clean everything up _again_. Harry was just reaching for the old worn out comforter on top of his bed so he could shake the dust off of it once more when his cousin stomped back down the steps yet again. More than a little annoyed by his cousin's stomping but also a bit curious as to what would drive his cousin to make multiple trips up and down the stairs, Harry cracked the door open to find out what was going on.

Harry wasn't the only one that had been disturbed by his cousin's current antics and the second Harry stuck his head out of his cupboard, he heard his uncle demand, "What's all that racket out there!?"

"I'm throwing away a bunch of stupid trash!" his cousin yelled in answer just before he stormed out through the open front door with an armful of cables, computer accessories, and game cases.

"Well, keep up the good work," his uncle bellowed back before he cranked up the volume on the television in order to drown out the sound of his cousin's thundering through the house.

Harry didn't know what surprised him more; the fact that his cousin appeared to be tossing out the new NerveGear that his [Dudley's] Aunt Marge had just bought him for his twelfth birthday last month or the fact that Uncle Vernon didn't seem to care that his son was tossing out the expensive device, all of its accessories, the vast collection of PC games that Dudley had been given through the years, and the actual computer. Then again, it was entirely possible that his uncle didn't realize just what it was that his cousin was throwing in the rubbish due to the fact that his cousin had just called the computer and gaming equipment 'trash'.

Ducking back into his cupboard, Harry carefully considered what he'd just learned and what he was going to do with that knowledge. Well, he knew he wasn't going to tattle on his cousin; that was a sure-fire way of getting himself in trouble because all of his relatives would call him a liar the moment he opened his mouth and then they would blame Harry for the stuff ending up in the trash. He also wasn't about to let Dudley know that he [Harry] knew that his cousin had just thrown the computer out either because then his cousin would use that to get Harry in trouble at some point.

So, that left Harry with just two options; ignore what he'd seen and heard so that he could pretend that he didn't know what had happened to the computer and gaming equipment or smuggle everything back into the house and pretend that he didn't know what had happened to it. It didn't take Harry long to decide that he would nick the stuff from the trash later that night so that he could play around with it. His cousin obviously didn't want the gaming equipment anymore and it would be a shame for the practically brand new NerveGear to rot at the city dump because his cousin couldn't appreciate it.

Knowing that he wouldn't be able to fetch everything until after his relatives had gone to bed, Harry set about clearing out the very back of his cupboard (where the ceiling of the cupboard sloped down to the floor at the bottom of the stairs) so he'd have a place to set the computer and gaming gear up once he got it back inside. Once he finished doing that, he began making a mental list of the things that he would need to hide everything so none of his relatives would see it if they happened to look inside of his cupboard (a very rare occurrence since they preferred to forget that Harry existed).

After finishing the list, there was nothing else for Harry to do but wait. In order to help pass the time while he waited for his relatives to go to bed, Harry contemplated his relatives.

The Dursley family was comprised of four individuals; Vernon Dursley, his wife Petunia Dursley, his son Dudley Dursley, and his older sister Marjorie 'Marge' Dursley.

Mr. Dursley was an ordinary man with an ordinary job who loved his ordinary wife and wonderfully ordinary son. Mrs. Dursley was a perfect housewife who thought she had landed the perfect husband, knew she'd given birth to the world's most perfect boy, and she was perfectly content to spy upon her less than perfect neighbors in order to spread perfectly scandalous gossip about town. Dudley was just Dudley and he was a spoiled brat that cared for nothing and thought of no one but himself. And Ms. Dursley swore her brother's family was the best family one could have and took pleasure in gloating over how fine a boy her nephew was turning out to be.

Over all, they were a perfectly normal sort of family that was perfectly satisfied with their perfectly normal life.

Or they would have been if not for unwanted presence of one Harry James Potter spoiling their perfect life.

Harry was the only child of Mrs. Dursley's deceased (and long estranged) younger sister who had been dumped on the Dursley's doorstep in the middle of the night when he was a baby shortly after his parents had died. Instead of treasuring the only living link to her only sister, Mrs. Dursley resented the presence of her nephew and the burden his arrival had supposedly placed on her family. She also resented the fact that his very existence had utterly destroyed the thin veneer of normalcy that had been her life prior to little Harry's unexpected arrival on her doorstep.

Unknown to young Harry, the main reason why his aunt resented him so much was due to the fact that he'd been born with a rare ability; he'd been born with the ability to use magic, like his mother and father before him. That ability made him a freak in the eyes of Mr. and Mrs. Dursley. As such, the two adults went to great lengths to ensure that Harry never knew about his magic lest he get _ideas_ and actually _use_ his magic on them.

Oh, they never beat him or anything like that; in fact, they went out of their way to avoid touching little Harry if at all possible. They feared that they might contract some horrible disease if they were constantly coming into physical contact with the boy and so left him alone.

No, the methods they used to keep Harry in line were almost completely hands-off.

Instead, they focused on keeping Harry as downtrodden as possible without driving him to extreme emotions; shunning and snubbing him while making certain that he knew and understood that he was an unwanted burden whose parents were worthless drunks that had died in a car crash that they had caused. They also made many repeated attempts to smother his intelligence and imagination; though all they had managed to do was to drive Harry to go to great lengths in order to hide his intellect and creativity from them in order to avoid punishment.

They had, however, succeeded in making Harry's childhood rather miserable and lonely.

They only ever gave him ill-fitting, second-hand clothes that used to belong to his older, fatter cousin. They gave him the bare minimum to eat at each meal and periodically sent him to bed without supper. They had stuffed him in the cupboard under the stairs rather than giving him an actual bedroom. They never allowed him to join them on family outings nor did they let him participate in holiday activities. And they went out of their way to hide his very existence; treating him like a dirty little secret that would ruin their lives if their neighbors knew that he existed, let alone lived with them.

Not that anyone really paid all that much attention to Harry in the first place. In fact, most everyone in the neighborhood consistently ignored Harry for some inexplicable reason unless the Dursleys brought Harry to their attention and since they never did (because they didn't want anyone to know about Harry's existence), no one really noticed him. Even his teachers and the other students at school would mostly ignore him unless he was standing right in front of them and even then, they always seemed so surprised and confused to see him since they never remembered him after the fact.

Most of his teachers and classmates even forgot his name on a regular basis despite the fact that they saw him nearly every day that school was in session.

Harry had learned to take advantage of the rather large blind spot the teachers and students had for him very early on and often studied ahead in those classes he enjoyed. He occasionally skipped the classes he had no interest in or avoided the classes of those teachers he disliked and because the teachers ignored him, he never got caught skiving off of lessons. He would then spend the time he should have been in class in the school library reading books or in the computer lab on the computers looking up stuff or playing around instead.

He also felt no guilt in taking advantage of the fact that the staff ignored him to get double breakfasts and lunches during the school year. The Dursleys didn't starve him, per se, but they certainly restricted the amount of food that they gave him at each meal and his aunt never bothered to pack him a lunch on school days. Nor did she allow him to pack one for himself. So, the extra meals he got from the school's cafeteria allowed him to get his fill and whatever he didn't finish during the allotted meal times, he always saved for snacks (that was especially true of any fresh fruit that was served).

The sound of Dudley going to bed (which involved his cousin loudly yelling goodnight from the top of the stairs) drew Harry out of his thoughts at that moment and a quick check of the time (using an old watch he'd filched from Dudley's second bedroom) let him know that he only had to wait another hour before his aunt and uncle went to bed. It would then be another ten to twenty minutes after that before he could start sneaking Dudley's computer and gaming equipment back into the house since he'd need to give his relatives plenty of time to fall asleep.

Now that Dudley was no longer knocking dust free from the underside of the stairs, Harry shook the dust from himself and then spent the next fifteen minutes carefully shaking the plaster dust from his covers before he remade his so-called bed. He then used the little hand-held broom and dustpan set that his aunt had grudgingly given him a few years ago to clean up the floor so that he wouldn't track the dust through the house when he went to get the stuff from the rubbish bin and get in trouble for dirtying up the house; he'd empty the dustpan out in the morning when he got up.

Unfortunately, that didn't take him all that long to do and he was once against left cooling his heels while he waited for his aunt and uncle to go to bed. At that point, Harry turned out the light (so as to fool his aunt and uncle into thinking that he too had gone to bed) before he laid down on his bed and stared at the glowing display of his second-hand watch through the scuff marks on the clear cover that protected the watch's face. After another ten minutes had gone by, Harry couldn't help but start thinking about his life at the Dursleys again.

This time, he found himself focusing on the fact that they tended to blame him for everything that went wrong; even if there was no possible way for him to have been involved. Like the time that Uncle Vernon had blamed him for the flat tire he'd gotten pulling out of the drive. That wasn't even counting the numerous times that Dudley had gone out of his way to get Harry into trouble for things he [Dudley] had done; such as breaking the ugly old vase that had been gifted to Aunt Petunia on her wedding day by her mother.

Then there were the four cardinal rules that Harry had to follow lest he get himself in trouble for breaking them. Those rules were:

Never speak unless spoken to.  
Never ask questions.  
Never show any emotions.  
And above all else, never, ever speak of anything unnatural (like magic or fairytales).

So long as the rules were obeyed and his chores were completed on time, the Dursleys ignored Harry (provided there was no funny business going on that could be blamed on him).

Punishments were always limited to 'time out' in his cupboard so that he could 'reflect on his poor behavior' or extra chores 'to put his idle hands to use' but that hardly made being punished for something that hadn't been his fault any more enjoyable. Of course, insisting that he was innocent never helped matters either and the moment he tried, he got in more trouble for being 'argumentative'. It didn't take long for Harry to learn to just silently accept his 'punishments' for his supposed misbehavior in order to avoid having said punishments doubled for 'back talking'.

All in all, it made for a sad and lonely existence for one Harry Potter. He didn't complain, even though he had no idea what it was that he'd done to make his relatives hate him so much (completely unaware of his magical heritage), because any complaints that he might have voiced would have gotten him in trouble. He also couldn't remember a time when his life hadn't been the way it was now.

That didn't mean he was happy with his lot in life.

In fact, he hated living with the Dursleys (even if he didn't actively hate his relatives – he just didn't like them all that much). He couldn't bring himself to consider the Dursley's house home; not after he'd reached the age where he was old enough to realize just how unfair it was for his relatives to treat him the way that they did. When he'd been younger, he used to wish that some long lost relative would come and take him away from the Dursleys but he'd recently come to the conclusion that no one was going to save him from his lonely existence.

No, if he was going to be saved, Harry was going to have to save himself.

Unfortunately, his current options were rather limited due to his age and so he was pretty much stuck with the Dursleys for at least the next eight or nine years. And wasn't that just a depressing thought?

Before he could get too wrapped up in negativity due to the unpleasant truths that were his life, a loud snore cut through the night and let him know that his uncle had fallen asleep. He wouldn't have to worry about whether or not his aunt was asleep as well though due to the fact that she slept with ear plugs in her ears ever since Dudley had finally started sleeping through the night around age eight so that Uncle Vernon's overly loud snoring no longer disturbed her sleep.

A trill of excitement shot through Harry at that point; it was time to go rescue Dudley's poor mistreated computer and gaming equipment.

It would take him close to an hour and eight nerve wracking trips through the dark house to collect all of the computer and gaming equipment from outside and carry back inside to his cupboard. Another two trips would net him all of the materials that he would need to hide the reassembled computer from casual inspection. Setting everything up would take him an hour and half and most of that time had been spent rigging a thick curtain (made from an old blanket, a bunch of safety pins, and a broken broom handle) over the entire door to prevent any light from being seen through the cracks.

After securing the makeshift curtain over his door, Harry left his closet one last time to return the tools he'd borrowed to fix up his cupboard back to where they belonged so they wouldn't be missed. On his way back to his room, he grabbed several alcohol wipes from the first aide kit so he could clean the gaming equipment before he even turned it on (Dudley had gotten everything sticky with his tendency to snack on gooey sweets while at the computer). When he returned to his cupboard, he slid the blanket into place over his door and began taking care of his purloined computer.

Once he'd cleaned everything, Harry opened up the spare Nerve Direct Linkage Environment System (NERDLES) that Uncle Vernon had purchased (in case the one that had been implanted in Dudley malfunctioned at some point) and stuck it on the back of his neck at the base of his skull (as shown in the diagram of the package); completely unaware that the device was supposed to be surgically implanted. He winced as he felt the needles of the device pierce his skin but soon forgot about the pain as he slipped on the helmet unit of the NerveGear and powered on the device.

The device ran through a brief diagnosis of his current physical, mental, and emotional state before he launched the basic tutorial on how to use the equipment when the option was provided. Next he ran through a step that the system called calibration; the system requesting that he physically touch various parts of his body in order to allow the gear to learn how much he had to move his hands to reach each part; which would allow the system to accurately and smoothly portray the sensation of movement while he was playing the various games.

While he was focused on the tutorial and system calibration, Harry never noticed his long dormant magic wake up in response to the pain of sticking himself with the NERDLES. After healing the minor damage done by the needles, his magic then drew the NERDLES into his body in response to his unconscious desire to have the device in place and promptly integrated it into his spinal cord. Once in place, his magic enhanced the device's effectiveness instead of shorting it out like it should have the moment his magic had come in contact with the active technology – not surprising since the device hadn't actually been activated by a surgical technician upon successful implantation.

As soon as the system calibrations were completed, Harry disengaged the NerveGear and sat up so that he could load up a game. It was sheer happenstance that the game disk inside of the computer was the Beta Test of Ken no Sekai; the very game that had frustrated Dudley enough that he'd tossed out the computer. The reason for Dudley's frustration was immediately apparent the moment that Harry put the NerveGear back on and activated the game link; the gaming menu (and therefore the game's instructions) was in Japanese rather than English and Dudley didn't know any Japanese.

Harry didn't know any Japanese either but that didn't bother him. Nor did his inability to read what was on the screen deter him from playing the game. It did, however, mean that it took him close to three hours to muddle through the start menu in order to set up an account, create a game Avatar, and save his progress. Sadly, because it had taken so long to set everything up, it meant that he wouldn't have time to actually play the game that night. Not if he wanted to get any sleep that night so he'd be able to get up and do his chores in the morning.

It was with great reluctance that Harry exited the game and shut down the computer so that he could tuck it back behind the cardboard screen slash door that he'd made to hide the gaming console. The last thing he did before he went to sleep was pull the blanket covering his door over to the side where it would be out of the way just in case his relatives got up before he woke up and decided to check on him for some reason.

The next morning, Harry had to carefully mask his emotions and control his reactions when Dudley changed his mind about tossing out his computer only to find that the rubbish bins had been emptied by the trash truck an hour before he'd dragged himself out of bed. His cousin had promptly thrown a major tantrum about his gaming equipment being lost but had been unable (more like unwilling) to tell his parents why he was so mad; after all, even he would get in trouble for throwing out the expensive gift the way he did.

He couldn't even pin the loss on Harry this time because his parents had sent Harry to his cupboard immediately after supper and, as far as the family knew, had remained in his cupboard all night long – he'd long ago learned to not openly disobey them to avoid extra punishments.

It was sheer irony that, for once, Harry actually _had_ been to blame.

Not that he was about to let his relatives know that.

All day long, Harry kept his head down and silently did his chores without complaint in order to avoid drawing any attention to him. It worked rather well thanks to Aunt Petunia distracting Dudley with a freshly made chocolate cake and Uncle Vernon promising to get Dudley that racing bike he'd really wanted but hadn't gotten for his birthday before he left for work. The timely arrival of Dudley's little gang of friends just after lunch also helped since they dragged Dudley off to run around about the neighborhood getting into who knew what kind of trouble for most of the afternoon.

By the time he slipped into his cupboard after washing the supper dishes, Harry was wound tight with stress from the constant need to keep his emotions in check to hide the theft (more like rescue) of Dudley's computer. At the same time, he was more than a little excited by the prospect of actually getting to play Ken no Sekai as soon as his relatives were asleep. Sure, he could have turned on the game as soon as he closed his cupboard door but doing so was just asking for trouble since there was always a very slim chance that his aunt or uncle would check on him before they went to bed.

They had long used random surprise inspections of his cupboard to catch him doing something against the rules and while the number of inspections they sprang on him per year had dwindled down to almost nothing, they hadn't stopped entirely since none of the Dursleys actually trusted Harry.

The instant Harry heard Uncle Vernon start snoring around ten-thirty, he scrambled out of bed so that he could turn on the computer and load the game. As soon as the software started loading, he wasted no time in jamming the NerveGear helmet onto his head before he settled back down on his bed with the top of his head pointed towards the smallest part of his cupboard where the computer was located. He'd barely gotten comfortable before the heads up display notified him that the software had finished loading and he eagerly dove into the world of Ken no Sekai.

The game activated just seconds later and the moment Harry loaded the Avatar he'd created the previous night, he found himself transported into an enormous plaza that sat in the middle of a large, sprawling city that he would later learn was called Hajimari no Machi. It would take him a couple of minutes to adjust to the fact that it was the middle of the day in the game after the darkness of night in his cupboard. The second he'd adjusted to the abrupt change and got a good look around him, a large grin bloomed across Harry's face as he spun back and forth in an attempt to take everything in.

The most notable features of the plaza (aside from the fact that it was large enough to hold thousands of people) were the large clock tower topped by a bell, a rectangular platform surrounded by four columns (what he'd later learn was called a Teleport Gate) sitting in front of the clock tower, and the towering wall slash covered walkway that bracketed the plaza on both sides. To the north of the plaza, sat a huge castle or church that looked kind of foreboding to the nine year old while off to the south, he thought he saw the light shimmering off a large pond or possibly a small lake.

After a couple of minutes spent drinking in the view inside of the plaza, Harry glanced up at the clock face of the tower to check the time (so he could check how long he'd been there already) before he darted out of the plaza in order to explore the city. As soon as he set foot in the city proper, Harry stumbled to a stop and gaped as he took in the rambling streets, mismatched buildings, brightly colored awnings, and semi-crowded streets. In short, the place looked nothing like the cookie-cutter rows of houses that filled the neighborhood that his aunt and uncle lived in and that alone made it remarkable.

It was love at first sight.

A laugh of pure joy was torn from Harry's throat as he gave a little hop-skip-jump of excitement before he bolted down the nearest street so he could explore the wondrous city that was spread out for miles in front of him; stopping only to check the time every now and then. It didn't take long for Harry to get lost as he blindly explored the city but he didn't care; he was far too busy trying to take in every little detail of the vibrant world around him. He also neither noticed nor cared that the people around him (both the other Players and the NPCs) all spoke Japanese rather than English.

Before he knew it, Harry had spent just over three hours wandering through the city and it was with great reluctance that he saved and exited the game so that he could get some sleep. He would spend an equal amount of time further exploring the city every night for the next six days as well. Some people might have found it boring to spend well over twenty hours just wandering about through a game-world village when there was an actual game to play but Harry was smitten with the city and wanted to see every last nook and corner.

His diligence in satisfying his curiosity would also net him his first in-game Skill when he unlocked an Unarmed Skill called Navigation. It would actually take him a week to figure out that the new Skill was an actual Game Skill and that it was a kind of mapping function that let him map out towns and Dungeons within the game.

The higher his mastery of the Skill, the more ground he could 'see' within the map without walking over every inch of ground. And all it took to earn Skill Points for that particular Skill was for him to walk around and explore different towns and Dungeons. Harry wasn't really all that worried about gaining Skills or Skill Points at the moment though; he was far too wrapped up in _seeing_ the bright new world that he'd stepped into.

After getting his fill of directionless exploring out of his system for the moment upon ending his seventh consecutive visit to Hajimari no Machi, Harry finally turned his attention towards figuring out how to play the actual game.

* * *

 **Translations:** Japanese to English

Hajimari no Machi – Starting City or Town of Beginnings  
Ken no Sekai – Sword Art Online

 **Game Terminology:**

Avatar – the term for a playable character that a player uses during game play  
Dive – short for FullDive  
Dungeon – an area within the game where players can attack or be attacked by monsters (or other players)  
FullDive – the use of technology to fully immerse one's conscience in a virtual reality  
NERDLES – **Ner** ve **D** irect **L** inkage **E** nvironment **S** ystem (a surgically implanted chip that allows the FullDive system to interface with the brain – the surgically implanted part may or may not be canon as it was something I thought seemed more logical than it just being part of the interface helmet)  
NerveGear – equipment created by Kayaba Akihiko (Argus); allows the user to enter FullDive  
NPC – **N** on- **P** layer **C** haracter (basically a computer generated character)  
Player – an in-game character that is 'played' by a human  
Player Menu – the interface through which a player interacts with the game  
Skills – set abilities that can be performed by characters/players in a game  
Skill Points – Experience points that are applied towards mastery of an in-game skill

 **Notes:**

For those of you who have read my other HP/SAO crossover 'Magic Online', you will have probably recognized quite a few bits and pieces of this chapter from the first chapter of that story and the reason for that is because the plot that I used for this story was heavily based off of the plot that I used for that story. This story is not a carbon copy of Magic Online though and any similarities will quickly vanish since the plot for this story rapidly deviated from the plot of my other story. The differences should be fairly evident in how Dudley's computer ended up in the trash in this story which was markedly different than how it had been thrown out in MO.

* * *

 **AN:** _I had originally hoped to update one of my older WIPs today as one final update of 2017 but I was unable to get any of them finished in time; though I did make progress on some of them. So, because I still wanted to update this weekend, I decided to post this story a week ahead of schedule. Now, just because I'm posting a new story, doesn't mean I'm going to neglect the stories I've been working on. I won't. In fact, this story has enough chapters prepped and ready for posting that I won't have to worry about writing anything new for a while on it.  
_

 _Though I will work on it between my other stuff because I want to finish it before I run out of chapters to post for you._

 _In any case, I intend to post one chapter per week on this story in order to both set a regular update schedule AND to let everyone know I'm still alive in between the updates on my other stories. Once I have chapters ready for my other stories (which I'm still working on), those chapters will be posted in place of the weekly updates for this story instead of in addition to this story just to make doubly certain that I have enough stuff to post a chapter a week for the entire year._

 _Of course, there may still be times when I miss a weekend post or two... (I have issues keeping track of schedules and dates) but I will make a solid effort to miss as few as possible!_

 _In any case, I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of my new story and hope to see you back when I post the second chapter next weekend! Until then, have a HAPPY NEW YEAR! ~ Jenn_


	2. Trial and Error

**Disclaimer:** _Usually, I write out a very specific disclaimer explaining exactly what it is I don't own but once again I find myself not really interested in doing so for this story as it's very tedious. Suffice it to say I own nothing that was created by anyone else and I'm making no money whatsoever from the writing of this FanFiction._

 **Warnings:** _Mild to moderate violence, character death, foul language, alternate universe (i.e. kiss HP canon goodbye), angst, drama, starts pre-Hogwarts Era, original Quests, some minor religious themes, and who knows what else._

 **AN1:** _This story is self-beta'd; so there may be occasional grammatical or spelling errors that crop up every now and then and for those I apologize in advance._

* * *

Chapter Two: Trial and Error

 _Thursday, August 15, 2019 9:15 PM  
Central Plaza, Hajimari no Machi, First Floor_

As soon as Harry appeared in the plaza of Hajimari no Machi, he headed away from the Clock Tower in order to find an out of the way place where he could start figuring out how to actually play the game without getting in the way of the other Players now that he'd explored what he felt must have been every single inch of Hajimari without actually stepping inside any of the buildings. He eventually settled himself in the bushes that ringed the small lake to the south of the plaza and once he'd made himself comfortable, he opened the Player's Menu and began exploring the various pages.

The first page that popped up was the familiar default Menu that had the icon of a person on the left side and a list of Sub-Menus on the right side. After studying the list of Sub-Menus for a minute, Harry tapped them one right after the other to see what would happen. Each of the Sub-Menus would open up another list of words that varied in length and after trying and failing to puzzle them out, he randomly clicked on one to see what would happen. The one he happened to chose just happened to be the Navigation Skill that he'd unlocked on his second night of explorations.

As soon as he clicked on the line, a glowing mess of lines that looked like a weird maze popped up into the air in front of his face just to the right of his head. It took him a few minutes to realize that the strange maze was actually a map of the city; something that excited him when he learned that the glowing yellow dot on the display represented him while the moving green dots represented other Players. He'd eventually discover that red dots denoted Monsters, blue dots denoted NPCs with active Quests (or goods for sale), and gray dots denoted filler NPCs once he learned to read Japanese.

After testing out the map for several minutes (including teaching himself how to zoom in and zoom out so he could see more or less of the map at a time), Harry eagerly continued exploring the Menu. He clicked on a few different things with no visible results before he somehow managed to undress his Avatar by touching the Icon that looked like a human. Letting out a yelp of embarrassment (even though he wasn't actually naked and his Avatar only vaguely resembled his actual self), Harry hurriedly fumbled with the Menu to dress himself once more; his face bright red with mortification.

At least no one else had been around to witness his little blunder or it would have been ten times worse.

Harry stopped exploring that particular section of the Menu once his clothes were back where they belonged. In the other sections that he played around in, he found the option that he thought let him change the language that the Menu was written in and fiddled around with the different options available until he found what he thought at first was English (the letters looked the same) but what he'd later learn was romaji which was just a Romanized way of writing the Japanese language. He'd leave the new 'language' active when he moved onto the next section of the Menu.

He found the Inventory Page next and discovered that he could take things out of his Inventory by clicking on them. That was how he learned one of the two Items in his Inventory was some kind of Potion (a small vial of what looked like pink liquid). He hadn't known what it was so he'd simply put it back. The other Item on the list would turn out to be a rather short sword and he'd quickly put it back into his Inventory without touching it for fear that he'd cut himself like he had the one time that his aunt had tried to have him cut up an onion.

He'd been forbidden from touching the knives after that because he'd gotten blood all over the counter, cutting board, onion, floor, and himself before his aunt had snapped at him to hold his hand over the sink and rinse the blood off before he pressed a bunch of paper towels to the cut to stop the bleeding.

Harry lost interest in his Menu after that and closed it out before he checked the time. Seeing that he still had a good two and a half hours left before he needed to log out, Harry decided that he was going to follow some of the other Players and see where they were going when they left the town. As soon as he began following the first Player he tracked down using the Map that he'd left active, Harry unknowingly unlocked the Equipped Skill known as Tracking and the longer he followed the same Player without being caught, the more Skill Points he earned for that Skill.

Despite not knowing that he'd unlocked another Skill quite by accident, Harry did notice the glowing green footsteps that shimmered into view the moment he'd earned ten Skill Points in Tracking. It didn't take him long to figure out that the tracks were being left behind by the Player he was following. By the time he reached twenty-five Skill Points (about the time he'd tracked his target to the edge of the city), he noticed that his Map now had a green line that connected his yellow dot to the green dot of the Player he'd been tracking.

"That's so cool!" Harry exclaimed to himself as he watched the green dot and green line moving further away from him on the Map before both the line and the dot suddenly disappeared where the Map ended. "Huh? What! Where'd he go!?"

Afraid that he'd lost the other Player somehow, Harry took off running; taking care to follow the now fading green line of footsteps that the Player had left behind. He would soon reach the point at which the Player had disappeared from his Map but Harry was distracted from following his chosen target when he realized that he'd reached the city wall and that he was standing in front of a large archway with an open portcullis looking out onto a dirt road that led into an open field that stretched away as far as the eye could see.

The moment he stepped through the arch and onto the road beyond, the Town Map that had been on display was replaced with a new, incomplete Dungeon Map.

He'd just entered his first Game Dungeon.

Forgetting all about the other Player he'd been tailing, Harry wandered off into the open field in order to explore the new area he'd just walked into. He'd occasionally spot other Players in the distance but rather than spy on them, he'd veer away from them in order to continue his explorations. He'd been wandering for nearly an hour (and steadily expanding the Dungeon Map with each step he took in a new direction) when he came face to face with his first Dungeon Monster; a rather angry looking pig-like creature.

Harry barely had time to squeak out a surprised 'Eep' before the pig-like Monster charged him head on and stomped all over him several times. The next thing Harry knew, the world around him had shattered and he found himself standing in an all black area with a large, flattened hexagon with writing on it. He wasn't sure what the 'sign' was telling him because he couldn't read the words on it but he thought it might have something to do with what had happened to him just before he'd appeared in that place. After glancing around for some clue as to what to do next, Harry tried to open his Menu but instead got a small box with a short sentence on it and two buttons below the unrecognizable line of words.

Unsure of what the buttons were meant to do, Harry hesitantly poked the green one and blinked in surprise when he suddenly found himself standing in the middle of what looked like a large cathedral. The nine year old was both confused about what had just happened and rather in awe of the cavernous room that he'd just appeared inside of. After taking several minutes to explore the room, he found a sign with the words Sosei-sha no Ma etched on it beside the only exit in the room.

Peering nervously out of the open doors, Harry was slightly surprised to find himself looking out at the plaza where he always appeared each time he logged into the game. It was at that point that he realized the room he was standing in must be inside of the large building that sat to the north of the plaza. He hadn't actually known that he could enter the building though (not that he'd wanted to in the first place – it'd looked rather intimidating). Now that he knew Players could set foot in the building, he wondered if he should explore the place or go back to the Dungeon and figure out what it was that had happened to him when that Monster had attacked him.

He was just about to step out into the sunlit plaza (the game running on Tokyo Time rather than London Time), when another Player popped up into the room behind him and barked out an incomprehensible (to Harry), " _Chikushou! Dead again! Stupid feathered menaces; why the hell do they always have to attack en mass!?_ "

The other man then darted right passed Harry without even glancing in the younger boy's direction. Frowning, Harry glanced in the direction the man had dashed off in before he twisted around to study the cathedral he'd appeared inside of. As he watched two more Players popped up in the room and one of them started patting himself down (as if to make certain he was in one piece) while his companion laughed and slapped him on the back. Both of those Players soon followed the first Player as they playfully bickered back and forth with one another in Japanese.

Harry would waste another hour just watching the Players appear inside the cathedral as he tried to figured out why they were sent there. The thing that confused him the most was that some players were constantly coming back to the room while others only appeared once before they disappeared completely. Watching the Players cross the Map after they left the cathedral room showed him that the Players that appeared in the room always vanished back into the Dungeon after leaving the room.

That knowledge made him wonder where he would've ended up if he'd pushed the 'red' button that had appeared below the game sign that had popped up after he'd been run over by the Monster. It wouldn't be until after he started teaching himself how to read Japanese in the school library once school started up again that he would learn that Sosei-sha no Ma was where a player's character would respawn if they 'died' during the game; providing they chose the option that would allow them to continue playing the game rather than the one that had them quitting the game.

In the mean time, it was time for him to log out because he'd already been in the game for nearly three hours.

After he logged out of the game that night, Harry was rather surprised when he received a system message stating that his download was complete when he closed out the game. He didn't remember downloading anything. Following the link provided by the Window that had popped up to inform him of the download's completion, Harry soon opened up a picture of a bunch of bushes. It only took him two minutes to figure out that he must have activated some kind of in-game camera when he'd been playing around with his Menu after he'd recognized the bushes as the ones he'd hidden in while he'd been messing about with his Player Menu.

He got really excited once he realized that he could take pictures while he was in the game. Not only would he be able to take pictures of all the cool things he saw but he could also take pictures of the signs and stuff so he could look up the words on them in order to translate them. He didn't know if he could take pictures of his Menu but he figured he could always find a way to copy the words out in the game and then take a picture of what he'd written instead. That would be so much easier than trying to memorize all of the foreign words like he'd originally been trying to do.

As excited as he was about discovering the in-game camera, what really stuck with him was the mystery of the cathedral room. All the next day, he kept finding himself thinking about the mysterious room and wondering why some Players were sent there. As a result, the next time he logged into Ken no Sekai, he parked himself just inside of Sosei-sha no Ma to count the number of Players that passed through the room for an hour while tracking them through the city on the Map when they left the room in an attempt to figure it out.

After just sitting there for an hour without really learning anything he hadn't already known, Harry gave up on solving that particular mystery in favor of heading back out into the Dungeon so he could do some more exploring.

This time, he actually got close enough to a couple of the other Players to watch them fight off a few of the pig-creatures and he was more than a little surprised to see the Monsters shatter after they were hit a number of times. Not long after those fights, he saw another Player shatter when a couple of huge snake-like creatures attacked her from out of a large clump of grass. That Player would return to that exact same spot less than ten minutes later to shatter all of the snake-things. Harry thought maybe the girl had been sent to the cathedral room after she'd shattered but he couldn't be certain.

Not long after seeing the shattered Player return to the Dungeon, Harry wandered further into the field and once again found himself face to face with one of the pig-creatures. This time, when the creature charged him, he jumped to the side and fumbled his Menu open so he could pull out his sword in order to fight it off like he'd seen the other Players fight off the other pig-creatures. As soon as the sword appeared in the air in front of him, he grabbed by the blade it with both hands in his haste because he could see the Monster turning around to attack him a second time.

There was a strange tugging slash itching sensation on his hands as they grasped hold of the blade and Harry gasped in surprise when he realized he'd just cut his hands open with the blade and he yanked his hands off of the sword and gaped in horror at the crystal filled gashes on his hands. The sword would fall as a result of him letting go and pin his foot to the dirt before something barreled into him from behind and knocked him onto the ground before it stomped all over him until the world around him suddenly shattered without warning once again. He would find himself back in the black space just seconds later and Harry scowled in frustration.

He then carefully inspected his hands and foot but found the injuries he'd expected to find weren't there. He knew he hadn't imagined the strange wounds he'd seen on his hands after he'd grabbed the blade by accident or on his foot from where the sword had struck it but they were no longer there now. He spent another minute poking at his hands before he determinedly poked the green button that he knew would send him back to the cathedral room of the palace. As soon as he materialized in the room, he checked his hands again but still found no evidence of an injury.

After he'd checked his hands, Harry made his way back to the Dungeons in order to try again; there was no way he was going to give up now. Instead of moving deeper into the Dungeon after he left the city, Harry drew his sword back out from his Inventory a second time and carefully grabbed hold of it by the hilt. He then gave it a few experimental waves (like he'd once seen Dudley do with a plastic sword he'd gotten as part of a Halloween costume one year) and promptly cut his right foot off when he tripped over his own feet and lost hold of the sword.

Harry cried out in shock as he watched his severed foot shatter apart like the Monsters that he'd seen the other Players kill had. He then dropped his eyes to the red stump where his foot used to be and stared at it in horror while he ignored the flashing Icon on the bar that hovered above his head and just to one side of his vision and the annoying blare of a warning that accompanied the flashing. If he'd been paying attention, Harry would have seen that bar turn from green to yellow to orange to red before the color disappeared entirely a second before the world around him shattered yet again.

He was still in the process of panicking over the way he'd cut his own foot off when he reappeared in the black room for the third time and he immediately fell back on his butt and clutched at his ankle.

His panic immediately turned to confusion when he found his right foot back where it belonged. Come to think if it, he hadn't felt any pain either time he'd injured himself. That didn't make temporarily loosing his foot any less horrifying in his mind. However, it was rather cool that he was back in one piece despite cutting off his own foot. It helped that there was no pain or blood involved. There wasn't even a scar left behind from where his foot had been severed. Harry flopped back onto the floor and stared up at the black ceiling in relief before he giggled to himself over the way he'd overreacted.

This _was_ a game, after all, and getting injured inside of the game didn't mean that he'd be injured in real life. At least, he hoped it didn't; he'd have to check his foot once he logged out to know for sure though.

Once he calmed down, Harry hurriedly climbed up onto his feet and punched the green button to get back to the palace so that he could head back out to the Dungeon to try again. Over the course of the next forty-five minutes he'd shatter himself in dozens of increasingly embarrassing ways every single time he touched the sword. When it wasn't the sword that sent him to the black space, it was the stupid Monsters that 'killed' him. They'd trample him, gore him with their tusks, bite him with their poisoned fangs, or rip him apart with their claws and beaks.

And in all that time he hadn't once successfully beat even one of the stupid Monsters.

He'd actually log off early that night because he'd been growing frustrated with his repeated failures. He was also more than a little embarrassed because a couple of the other Beta Testers had laughed at him when they'd witnessed some of his stupider 'deaths' in the game. Like when he'd stabbed himself in the back while trying to put his sword in the sheath that was part of his outfit (it took time to pull it out of his Inventory) or when he'd been trying to swing the sword at one of the snake-like creatures only to trip over his feet (again) and stab himself through the stomach when he hit the ground before he was bitten to death by the stupid snake he'd been trying to kill.

The constant set-backs hadn't driven Harry to throw the game out though; they'd just made him all that more determined to muddle through things until he could get it right. What Harry didn't realize was that part of the problem he had with using the sword in the game was psychological though. He'd developed an innate fear of knives after he'd cut himself due to how much blood there'd been that one time he'd cut himself on one of Aunt Petunia's knives and due to the way his aunt had reacted to him cutting himself.

And it had hurt, unlike the injuries that he'd gotten in the game, and part of him still remembered just how much pain his hand had been in at the time.

Harry didn't know that though and the more he struggled with the game sword and continued to cause himself 'injuries' with the blade, the stronger that fear actually grew because he'd come to expect to be 'hurt' every time he picked up a sword now. He was just stubborn enough to ignore that fear while in the game though and when Harry logged back into the game on the seventeenth, he resumed his rather comical attempts to master the sword. The nine year old disguised as an adult in the game would lose count of the number of times he shattered during the three hours he played that night.

He'd spend another hour on the eighteenth repeatedly shattering yet again before he finally grew frustrated enough that he threw the stupid sword away from him only for it to bounce off of a tree and lop his head off when he didn't duck fast enough after it had rebounded in his direction.

The moment he reappeared in the cathedral room after that particularly nasty 'death', Harry was well and truly fed up with the blasted sword. He still refused to throw away the game in a tantrum though and instead, spent a good hour and a half figuring out where and how to sell the stupid piece of junk so he could get himself a proper new sword that actually worked. Unfortunately, he quickly learned that it wasn't the swords that were the problem; it was him. No matter what kind of sword he picked up, he'd inevitably kill himself with it; and that was after spending around eight hours trying.

He'd leave the game before he could resolve the problem.

When he logged in on the twentieth, Harry didn't even bother to give his newest sword another try.

Instead, he spent the entire night scouring the village for an NPC shop that sold something other than swords. It took him almost all three hours to find one due to the fact that the sword was the most popular weapon in the game. He'd then spend a good half an hour debating with himself on which weapon he should try next. He shied away from anything with an obvious blade (such as pikes, lances, and axes) and hemmed and hawed over the less obvious weapons (like the shovels, pitchforks, and clubs).

In another world, a different Harry would take up the shovel to become a trapper because he'd been wielding shovels for a good two years since his aunt had first put him to work in her garden. This Harry shied away from anything that reminded him of his relatives though and he soon turned away from the 'tool' section in order to dig through the dusty merchandise tucked in the back of the store. He'd eventually pull out a weapon that he'd read about in various fables and fairytales nearly as often as he'd read about swords and shields; a Bow.

It was often seen as the weapon of bandits, thieves, and lawless savages but there was one English hero that had made that particular weapon famous and Harry had often read about his exploits since he'd first learned how to read. Those stories had been amongst his favorite books to read.

They'd been exciting stories about an infamous thief who had robbed from the rich and gave to the poor; fantastical legends about a hero who fought against a corrupt government and gave hope to the people.

They were all stories about Robin Hood.

And what little boy hasn't at one time or another dreamt of defeating their world's Sheriff of Nottingham?

Harry was no exception and if he habitually cast his relatives in the role of the 'evil' sheriff, well, he certainly wasn't going to ever admit it to their faces.

As soon as Harry picked up the Bow he felt he'd found the perfect weapon for him. It wasn't too heavy, it didn't have any sharp edges, and it fit quite nicely in his Avatar's hands. He could also see himself firing Arrows with it whereas he hadn't quite been able to picture himself waving about a sword without recalling the various different ways that he'd shattered his Avatar with the stupid blades. Harry promptly purchased the Bow and as many Arrows as he could afford with what money he'd had left after he'd purchased and resold so many different swords.

He wouldn't get a chance to test out his new weapon in the Dungeon that night, he'd spent far too much time trying to find something that wasn't a bladed weapon (the Arrowheads didn't count as they were nothing but carved points and therefore not much different than a sharpened pencil in his mind). Harry didn't mind not getting to play that night all that much though; he'd be back in less than twenty-four hours and he'd be able to test it out then.

He would, in fact, spend all of his time on-line on the evenings of the twenty-first and twenty-second teaching himself how to use his new Bow. On the first night, he'd spent a good chunk of his game time just growing used to handling the Bow, practicing drawing the Bowstring, and figuring out the best way to wear the Quiver that held his Arrows. He also spent a good deal of time trying different ways to carry his new Bow so that it was quick and easy to draw; he didn't want to get shattered by a Monster while trying to take it out of his Inventory like he had with the sword more than once.

Most of his second night of practice was then spent teaching himself how to 'trigger' the standard in-game attacks since there was a certain level of automation involved in using the game's various weapons. (A fact that only made his many 'deaths' by sword all that more embarrassing for the nine year old – and what had made his deaths so entertaining for the other Beta Testers that had witnessed the spectacles. In fact, his comical attempts had unknowingly earned him the nickname of the Clumsy Swordsman or Kenshi no Hebo in Japanese – something that he wouldn't learn until nearly a year later.)

His third attempt at using the Bow that second night would unlock the Equipped Skill titled Archery and each successive attempt would gain him Skill Points that slowly increased his proficiency in that Skill. Successful attempts at activating the two basic shots (a straight shot and an arched shot) that were available with the basic Bow he was using would gain him double the number of Skill Points. Once he could consistently activate the two basic shots, Harry decided he would make another attempt to fight one of the Monsters that populated that first Dungeon the next time he logged in.

As soon as he logged onto Ken no Sekai on the evening of the twenty-third, he quickly made his way to the Dungeon to look for a Monster to shatter (unlocking another Equipped Skill called Searching). He'd find a small group of the pig-like creatures just five minutes after entering the Dungeon; those Monsters were rather common on the First Floor. He crept up as close as he dared to the trio of Monsters (unlocking a fourth Equipped Skill called Sneak) and carefully lined up his first shot on the pig-creature closest to him. Once he thought he was ready, he fired the Arrow.

"Dang it," Harry huffed under his breath when the Arrow fell well short of its target and shattered the moment it hit the ground.

Luckily, none of the Monsters noticed his failed attack and Harry debated on whether he should try using the arched shot (since it covered more distance than the straight shot when it was activated correctly) or if he should move closer and try again. After thinking about it for a minute, he chose to move closer since he thought it might be kind of hard to aim the arched shot properly. Once he made a decision, he cut the distance between himself and the group of Monsters in half before he made a second attempt to hit the closest pig-creature.

This time, he was well within his current Bow's limited range of ten yards and his Arrow struck true. Unfortunately, the amount of damage the Arrow did to the Monster wasn't enough to shatter it. It did, however, damage the pig-creature just enough to make it mad and it somehow seemed to realize exactly where the Arrow had been fired from as the angry Monster charged directly at Harry less than thirty seconds after it had been hit by his Arrow.

"Oh, crud," Harry whined as he fumbled for another Arrow in an attempt to fire a second shot before he was trampled to death by yet another pig-like Monster.

He somehow managed to fire off another shot and it hit the rampaging creature in the chest. When the Monster just kept right on charging towards him, Harry growled under his breath and hurried to load a third Arrow to try again. There was no way that third shot was going to miss due to how close the beast was to Harry when he fired the shot and the thing exploded into shards practically right on top of the nine year old when that third Arrow had hit the Monster in the face. A Notification Window then popped up detailing the rewards that Harry had earned for killing the Monster.

Harry barely even glanced at the little Window (he couldn't actually read anything on it aside from the amount of money he earned, after all) before he closed it out. He then dropped back onto the grass in relief over the fact that he hadn't been run over for the umpteenth time by yet another Monster. He then let out a loud whoop of glee when he realized that he'd successfully won his first Monster fight. A minute later, a sheepish Harry reappeared in Sosei-sha no Ma after the two remaining pig-creatures had attacked him when his cry of joy had caught their attention.

He'd completely forgotten that the pig-like Monster that he'd been targeting hadn't been alone before he'd given into his need to celebrate his first success.

He really hoped none of the other Players had seen him shatter so stupidly. Bad enough they'd seen him shatter himself repeatedly with the stupid sword. He was pretty certain a few of the other Players had followed him around back when he'd still been trying to get the sword attacks to work just so that they could laugh at him when he died. A few might have even been yelling advice to him in hopes that his patheticness with a sword could be cured but because they'd all been yelling that advice in Japanese, he hadn't understood a single word they had shouted at him.

So, it was entirely possible that they had been heckling him at the time instead.

It had certainly sounded like they were heckling him on more than one occasion.

Shaking away the useless thoughts in an effort to stem his embarrassment, Harry checked to make certain that he still had his Bow and Quiver before he headed back out to the Dungeon in order to face another Monster. This time, he made it a point to search out solitary Monsters in order to avoid another embarrassing death. That strategy worked really well for the next several pig-like he faced but finding just one of the snake-like creatures or the buzzard-like bird Monsters was nearly impossible because they always attacked in groups and the stupid snakes were hard to see unless you were right on top of them because they hid in burrows under the tall grasses.

Despite his repeated deaths over the course of his game play that night, Harry enjoyed facing off against the Monsters of the game. Each time he shattered another Monster with his Bow and Arrows, he'd felt like he'd accomplished something and it made him very glad that he hadn't given up when he'd failed to teach himself how to use a sword. In fact, he felt so giddy with his growing number of successes that he renamed the different Monsters he faced after his relatives since he didn't actually know what they were called.

The pig-like ones were Vernons (they were large and quick to anger, just like his uncle), the snake-like ones were Petunias (their loud hisses reminded him of his aunt gossiping with the neighbors), and the bald birds that he thought looked like buzzards were Dudleys (because his cousin always hung out with a mob of boys like the birds).

Harry soon found that it was rather cathartic to shatter horrible Monsters that were named after his relatives. He might not hate his so-called family but that didn't mean he didn't find enjoyment in figuratively 'beating' them each time he 'killed' another one of the Monsters. It also gave him hope that he might one day win his way free of his relatives in real life; that he could grow strong enough to leave them and his life with them forever behind him.

As an added bonus, taking his real life frustration over his treatment at the hands of his relatives out on the Monsters he encountered in the Dungeon earned him Experience and Skill Points that improved his ability to kill the Monsters; both the literal ones in the game and the figurative ones in his head.

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 **Translations:** Japanese to English

Chikushou – damn/damn it  
Hajimari no Machi – Starting City or Town of Beginnings  
Hebo – bungler, clumsy, greenhorn  
Ken no Sekai – Sword Art Online  
Kenshi – swordsman  
Sosei-sha no Ma – Room of Resurrection (formerly translated as Fukkatsu no Heya on the SAO Wiki)

 **Game Terminology:**

Avatar – the term for a playable character that a player uses during game play  
Dive – short for FullDive  
Dungeon – an area within the game where players can attack or be attacked by Monsters (or other players)  
Experience Points – the points earned for each quest completed and each Monster killed  
FullDive – the use of technology to fully immerse one's conscience in a virtual reality  
NERDLES – **Ner** ve **D** irect **L** inkage **E** nvironment **S** ystem (a surgically implanted chip that allows the FullDive system to interface with the brain – the surgically implanted part may or may not be canon as it was something I thought seemed more logical than it just being part of the interface helmet)  
NerveGear – equipment created by Kayaba Akihiko (Argus); allows the user to enter FullDive  
NPC – **N** on- **P** layer **C** haracter  
Player – an in-game character that is 'played' by a human  
Player Stats – A list of a player's in game statistics and skills  
Ranged Fighter – a warrior class character that fights from a distance  
Respawn – a reset of the player's (or Monster's) character after the character has 'died' within the game  
SAO – **S** word **A** rt **O** nline  
Skill Points – Experience points that are applied towards mastery of an in-game skill  
Skills – set abilities that can be performed by characters/players in a game

 **Notes:**

Once again, readers of Magic Online (my other HP/SAO crossover) might have noticed a few similarities between this chapter and the first two chapters of the other story (especially at the start of the chapter) but for the most part, this chapter contains all new material written specifically for this story with a borrowed plot line from Magic Online; the plot line in question being Harry's multiple character deaths via sword during his first few attempts at playing the game. That was something that was only referenced and never 'seen' in Magic Online though – something I partially fixed here.

Items – Just a quick note about Items in the story/game; due to the nature of the FullDive Game Environment, I have chosen to make all Items far more realistic than they are in most actual computerized RPGs. I.E.: all Bows will require bowstrings, all Fishing Rods will require Fishing Line (hooks are attached to the line instead of being sold separately), and all appliances and electric tools (Lamps, Stoves, Blenders) will require batteries or fuel (Coal or Electricity).

My reasoning for treating the Items in such a way was to increase the 'realness' of the game and to allow enhancements or upgrades to certain weapons or tools by changing out a replaceable Item on the weapon/tool. An example would be increasing the power of a Bow by using a sturdier Bowstring or being able to successfully hook larger/heavier fish with a heavier duty Fishing Line.

To increase the realism, I've also made it so that changing out the 'replaceable' or 'disposable' Items before they break from 'wear and tear' will prolong or increase the durability (or lifespan) of an Item while allowing for them to break while in use will decrease or reduce an Item's durability. So, you can equate the use of replaceable Items on various tools and equipment as self-maintenance for Items (similar to taking a Sword to a Blacksmith for maintenance and repair).

* * *

Harry's Game Data/Stats (At Time of First Kill):

 **Category:** Human Player  
 **Caste:** Warrior  
 **Class:** Ranged Fighter  
 **Type** : Bowman  
 **Level:** 01  
 **Hit Points:** 350/350  
 **Cor:** 48  
 **Attributes:** DEF [05], ATK [10], STR [05], AGI [10], STM [05], & LCK [10]  
 **Unspent Stat Points:** [20]

 **Main Equipment:**

Basic Bow – Flimsy Bow accurate up to 10 yards  
Basic Arrows – Low quality Arrows; pine shafts w/ sharpened points and fletched with pigeon feathers  
Old Boots – simple boots that make lots of noise  
Basic Clothes – clothing with no special capabilities

 **Equipped Skills:** 04 Slots  
(Basic 1-250 pts, Advanced 251-500 pts, Proficient 501-750 pts, Expert 751-999 pts, & Master 1000 pts)

Archery – 0038  
Searching – 0025  
Sneak – 0010  
Tracking – 0103

 **Unarmed Skills:** 2 Slots

Navigation – 0078  
EMPTY

* * *

 **AN:** _Okay, I'm certain I mentioned it in the long AN at the start of the previous chapter but just in case I didn't or in the even that you chose to ignore the boring author's note at the start of the first chapter, I'll say it again here; all spoken Japanese will be written in italics while all spoken English will be written in standard form to distinguish between the two. Any other language used will be denoted in the text of the story and will potentially be placed in italics or in underlined italics depending on whether or not any spoken Japanese is referenced in the chapter or scene in question. I will also make references to a character switching between English and Japanese from time to time to help keep up with any switches (mostly because I needed to keep it straight in my head).  
_

 _Okay, I think that pretty much covers everything I needed to say regarding the story since the other points I had were covered in the notes at the end of the chapter (see above). I certainly hope you enjoyed the chapter as much as I enjoyed writing (I think I had a little too much fun making Harry the clumsy swordsman). Chapter three will be up next weekend. I'm also still working with the next chapters on An Epic Adventure, Magic Online, and the Unbound Soul in the hopes of updating one of those stories soon. Just keep an eye on my author's page for potential updates in my posting schedule since I log my progress on individual chapters separately under the story names. _

_Lastly, I'd like to thank everyone who read and reviewed the first chapter AND everyone who added this story to their Favorites and Alerts list! You guys are awesome! (Hands out leftover candy canes and Christmas chocolates). ~ Jenn_


	3. Evolution of a Gamer

**Disclaimer:** _Usually, I write out a very specific disclaimer explaining exactly what it is I don't own but once again I find myself not really interested in doing so for this story as it's very tedious. Suffice it to say I own nothing that was created by anyone else and I'm making no money whatsoever from the writing of this FanFiction._

 **Warnings:** _Mild to moderate violence, character death, foul language, alternate universe (i.e. kiss HP canon goodbye), angst, drama, starts pre-Hogwarts Era, original Quests, some minor religious themes, and who knows what else._

 **AN1:** _This story is self-beta'd; so there may be occasional grammatical or spelling errors that crop up every now and then and for those I apologize in advance._

* * *

Chapter Three: Evolution of a Gamer

 _Saturday, August 24, 2019 1:12 AM  
No. 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey_

Harry breathed out a near silent sigh as he reached up to pull the NerveGear from his head. He was always bummed when it was time to log out of Ken no Sekai but it had been especially difficult to leave this time because he'd been having so much fun hunting the Monsters now that he knew how to defeat them. Letting out a second sigh, Harry pushed himself into a sitting position and stretched out the muscles that had gone stiff from lying in one position for so long. He then turned around to close the game and shut down the computer.

As soon as the screen went dark, he carefully moved everything back into the smallest section of his cupboard so that he could cover it back up before he went to sleep. He took care to make certain all of the cords were tucked away before he pushed the cardboard cover he'd made to hide the computer and gaming paraphernalia into place. Harry inspected the cardboard cover closely to make certain there were no gaps and that there was nothing sticking out before he pulled open the curtain that blocked off his cupboard's door and crawled into bed.

It would take Harry a long time to fall asleep once he was in bed. He was still all wired up from the progress he'd made in the game. It also felt far too stuffy in his cupboard for some reason and it almost felt like he was going to suffocate because of how warm it was inside. He was half tempted to crack the door to his cupboard open but didn't want to get snapped at in the morning for leaving the door open 'for someone to trip over'. For a moment, he even thought he saw the walls closing in on him as he sat up to throw off the covers but he figured it was probably just a trick of the light.

Once he did fall asleep, he tossed and turned until he woke up in the morning feeling more than a little groggy due to how stuffy his cupboard felt when compared to the wide open spaces of Ken no Sekai. He felt a little better once he was out of the small, enclosed space and moving around as he completed his chores for the day and by the time he returned to his cupboard after supper later that night, he'd forgotten all about how cramped and stuffy he had found the boot closet after his most recent trip to the virtual game world.

Each night for the next five nights, Harry would return to the Dungeons as soon as he set foot inside of the game in order to earn more money in the game so he could buy better Arrows. And a better Bow because the one he had now wasn't really all that good, even if it was a hundred times better than any of the swords that he'd tried using. That pattern would be broken on evening of the twenty-ninth of August after he'd been reminded that school would start up again soon when he heard Aunt Petunia make a comment to Uncle Vernon about buying school supplies for Dudley.

The reminder about school also reminded Harry that he needed to sort through the pictures of the stuff that he needed to translate from the game to make certain the words were readable in the photos. Only, when he looked in the photo folder on the computer that night, he discovered that he'd forgotten all about taking pictures of things with the in-game camera because he'd been far too busy getting beaten up by his own sword or shattering Monsters with his Bow.

It wasn't hard for him to make the decision to spend that night taking pictures rather than hunting Monsters since he knew translating the in-game signs and his Player Menu was more important. Of course, he first had to figure out which button on the Menu activated the in-game camera first since he didn't know which button had taken the photo; a process that involved Harry logging in to open his Menu so he could press a random button before he logged out in order to check to see if a new picture had been downloaded and repeating the process as many times as it took for him to find the camera button.

It took him a good thirty-three minutes to do so; most of that time spent logging in and logging out.

Once he knew how to activate the in-game camera, he flittered about the city taking pictures of every single sign he could find. He even managed to take some pictures of the Dungeon Monsters on the First Floor since they each carried a 'tag' that labeled their species. Capturing those pictures had not exactly been easy though since he couldn't attack them when he had the Menu Camera active and he couldn't stand too far away from the Monsters while he took the photos or the tags wouldn't be visible; meaning he had to be up close and personal with the Monsters to photograph them.

And that inevitably meant getting 'killed' a few times all for the sake of a few photos.

Not that Harry minded too terribly much, those deaths had at least been for a good cause; unlike his earlier deaths in the game.

Getting a copy of his different Menu Pages was far trickier since he couldn't actually take photos of the Menu (and he had tried) but he had suspected that that might be the case due to the way he accessed the in-game camera through the Menu. Finding a pen and paper in the game to copy out the Menu was a little harder since he wasn't able to actually ask the NPC Shopkeepers or other Players where to get those Items from. Once he did have them, it took him the rest of his time in the game that night and an hour the next night to copy out the Menu before he took pictures of everything he'd copied down.

After taking a picture of his handwritten Menu copy, Harry sorted through his Inventory (which he'd only just noticed was full of a bunch of junk when he'd been copying stuff) to figure out what everything was and if he was going to keep it or sell it off. Most of the stuff he got was rather weird (skins, bones, teeth, feathers, and meat) but he also got a few Items that he thought were useful (such as Arrows, Bowstrings, and Boots). He also got a few knives but he didn't touch those. He sold off most of what he'd collected but kept the Arrows, Bowstrings, and the nicest looking set of Boots.

After that, he'd spend less than an hour out in the Dungeons hunting Monsters before he called it a night.

Harry wouldn't get a chance to log into the game at all on the thirty-first; he'd spent all day mending the latest batch of hand-me-downs that his aunt had given to him in order to make them somewhat presentable for school. He'd then gone to bed early that night in order to adjust his sleeping schedule to make certain he got enough sleep for school. On top of that, he was having more and more trouble spending time in his cupboard each time he logged out of the game and it was especially hard to fall asleep in his cramped cupboard once he shut the computer off.

He was up by four the next morning and spent two hours playing Ken no Sekai before he got dressed for the day. The fact that he lost an hour's worth of game play meant he'd be going to bed even earlier that evening in the hopes that he would be up earlier in order to gain another hour or two of play time. So long as he logged out by six, he'd have more than enough time to get ready for the day and help him aunt make breakfast for his uncle. He wouldn't need to worry about making anything for Dudley; Dudley would be leaving for his second year at Smeltings later that night.

Harry would then have three and a half months before he'd see his cousin again. The nine year old was pleased with the fact that Dudley was older than him _and_ that Uncle Vernon had paid to send Dudley to a private boarding school; it meant that Harry didn't have to put up with him except during long holidays (winter and spring break) and during the summer. That also equated to fewer chances for Dudley to get him in trouble with his aunt and uncle or for him to make extra messes for Harry to clean up.

The downside, however, meant that his aunt would pay closer attention to him during the day (especially on weekends) because she would no longer have Dudley to fawn over. Of course, that mostly meant that she'd supervise him more closely as he did his chores and then inspect his work more thoroughly after he was done than she did when Dudley was around. He wasn't looking forward to the extra attention from his aunt because he was worried that she might notice he wasn't quite as unhappy all the time as he used to be; another side affect of spending time in the game.

He'd have to work on thinking sad thoughts during the day in order to make it harder for her to notice that he'd found something he enjoyed.

That would actually be fairly easy for him; all he had to do was think about how little time he got to spend in the game.

* * *

 _Monday, September 02, 2019 7:12 AM  
No. 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey_

Harry quietly slipped outside and pulled the back door shut behind him before he made his way around to the front of the house. Once he reached the street, he turned east and headed off to St. Grogory's* Primary School for the first day of the new term. On his back, the nine year old carried a battered rucksack that had seen better days; the old thing yet another second-hand item he'd inherited from Dudley. Inside of the pack, Harry carried the bare essentials he needed for school (pencils, an eraser, two notebooks, and a ruler) and a thumb drive holding copies of the photos he'd taken in the game.

Getting out of the house with the thumb drive had been rather tricky since his aunt _always_ inspected his rucksack before he left for school; to ensure that he wasn't smuggling valuables out of the house or sneaking any of Dudley's precious snacks. He couldn't just slip it into a pocket either because he had to turn his pockets out before he left the house for the same reason. No, he'd needed to be smart and tricky about his smuggling and had created small pockets in the shoulder straps of the rucksack when he'd repaired it after his aunt had handed it to him along with Dudley's old clothes.

He'd done the same thing to past rucksacks he'd used for school; though he typically used the hidden pockets to hold loose change he'd squirreled away (coins and bills he'd picked up off the street or that he'd found beneath the cushions of the couch) to keep his relatives from finding it. He usually used that money at the student store to buy replacement school supplies since his aunt never replaced what he used through the year and what she supplied at the start of every year was the cheapest supplies available and only bought the bare minimum.

Buying his own supplies from the school also meant he'd get better quality supplies and his aunt wouldn't complain about how much money he was costing her (not that she ever bothered to spend much on him). He also occasionally snuck extra supplies out of Dudley's second room since Dudley never used (or even really needed) all of the crap that Aunt Petunia bought for him at the start of each new school term. That was where the second notebook in his pack had come from; though it was an older one from the year before last so his aunt hadn't recognized it.

To prevent her from thinking that he'd 'stolen' the second notebook when she'd seen it in his bag, he'd claimed it was an extra one that he'd gotten from the school at the end of the previous school year; his aunt had accepted the lie as truth since there were times that Harry _did_ get unused supplies from the school (Dudley had as well when he'd attended the same Primary School). Harry hadn't felt any guilt about telling the fib; if only because he'd been telling the truth in a round about way and the supplies _had_ been unneeded extras.

He'd taken it at the end of a school year and it was an extra one that Dudley had not needed or used and that his cousin had thrown into his second bedroom once he'd gotten home from his first year at Smeltings.

It was far easier to smuggle things into the house; since Aunt Petunia never bothered to search him or his pack once he returned from school. Those items he brought home were usually retired library books, uneaten meal snacks, the handful of supplies he bought, and the odd trinket, lost toy, or discarded clothing that he rescued from the school's Lost and Found or that he found on the street on the way back to the Dursleys. Most of the items that he brought back with him were promptly hidden inside of his cupboard to prevent his relatives from finding them.

He had two secret cubbies in his cupboard for such stuff; one under his bed (which was really just a cot mattress set on a couple of folded cardboard boxes) and one behind the baseboard along the back wall of the cupboard. The small one under his bed was where he kept the trinkets, toys, and money he found while the larger one in the wall was where he stored the books he took from the library's 'obsolete bin' or snuck from Dudley's playroom. He didn't bother to hide the occasional shirt, jacket, jeans, or shoes he found since his aunt never bothered paying attention to his clothes.

Any snacks that he brought home were temporarily stored under his pillow and eaten the same day they were brought home (usually after supper in order to make up for the measly portions that he was given to eat). He didn't dare store the food any longer because of the increased chances that the food he stored would attract pests such as roaches, ants, and rodents; something that his aunt would take notice of right away. He always had to make certain to get rid of the trash and clean up any crumbs right away for the same reason.

And if there was one thing that his aunt hated more than she hated Harry, it was common household pests. She'd scream like a banshee when she saw one and then she'd go into a cleaning rampage where she tore the house apart from top to bottom and ordered Harry to scrub and bleach everything. At the same time, Uncle Vernon would be ordered (a rare occurrence since he was the 'man of the house' and therefore the one usually giving the orders) to spray poison around the outside of the house, in the basement, and in the crawl-ways under the house.

That was one of the few jobs that Harry was never allowed to do; his relatives feared he'd intentionally poison them.

Harry personally wasn't all that bothered by bugs or rodents but he'd learned to fear getting caught within five feet of a live one. His aunt had once seen a moth land on him and she'd chased him out of the house with the broom before she proceeded to sweep at him with the broom to kill or drive the moth off. She'd then ordered him to strip down to his briefs while still outside and had him wash himself from head to toe with lye soap before she hosed him off with the garden hose to ensure there were no more on him.

That had been both embarrassing and uncomfortable because the broom had been a stiff bristled one that left tiny welts on his arms and legs because she'd brushed so hard against his skin in her attempts to make certain he was 'clean'.

Needless to say, it had not been a pleasant experience and the lesson it had imparted had stuck with him.

The only reason he allowed a few spiders to remain in his cupboard was so that they'd deal with any other insects that got into the closet and he was very careful to make certain he didn't have any on him when he left the cupboard lest the sight of one set his aunt off. He was also very careful to keep the spider population down to a bare minimum lest they spread outwards from his cupboard because he knew his aunt would blame him if spiders ended up in any of the other rooms in the house. He did that by removing the egg sacks of the females and evicting any extra bodies that turned up.

He also made doubly certain to eradicate those spiders whose bites and venom were harmful to humans; no need to tempt fate by getting bit by a bug that would get him sick since it would only get him in trouble for 'playing around with nasty little vermin'.

Once he arrived at school, Harry made a beeline for the cafeteria in order to grab his usual double breakfast. He then took his food to the computer lab where he claimed the desk furthest away from both the door and the teacher's desk and quickly ate through those portions of his meal that couldn't be saved. After he'd eaten his fill, he tucked the uneaten portions into his backpack and cleaned his hands off with a damp napkin. Once clean, he removed the thumb drive from the hidden pocket on his rucksack, stuck it into a USB port of the computer on his purloined desk, and opened Windows Explorer in order to access his photos.

Harry then spent the rest of the morning looking up the various words and symbols in each photo and diligently copied the translations onto a notepad document on the computer that he saved to the thumb drive. As he worked through the morning (skipping his classes without a second thought), Harry snacked on his leftover breakfast during short breaks away from his research (so as not to dirty the computer) and made note of those words or symbols he couldn't find a translation for on the internet. He also looked up Japanese tutorials, Japanese to English dictionaries, and Japanese workbooks in order to teach himself how to read the language.

At lunch time, Harry would clean up his messes, save his files, and shut down the computer he'd been using so that he could grab lunch. This time, he quickly ate those items he couldn't store in his rucksack without making a mess before he packed up the rest of the food, left the cafeteria to head to the administration office in order to doctor his attendance records for the day, and get the usual start of term paperwork packets that all returning students had to take home and give to their parents or guardians to fill out and sign. He then headed for the library where he filled out the forms and forged his aunt's signature before returning the forms to the office.

In between the tedious process of filling out the annoying documents, Harry would browse the library for the books and tutorial programs that he'd looked up online; setting aside those that he found so he could check them out later. After finishing those two tasks, he returned the form packet to the office and grabbed a copy of his class schedule from the secretary's computer after she'd gotten up to use the bathroom. He then went around to his individual classrooms to pick up his textbooks, workbooks, and classroom supplies for the term so he could keep up with his classes.

Once he had everything he needed, he returned to the computer lab and snagged a free computer in order to browse for online tutorials for Ken no Sekai that he could potentially use to help him either translate the rest of the photos he'd taken or help him figure out those parts of the game he was having trouble with. Sadly, most of said tutorials were all in Japanese and therefore of limited use since he couldn't yet read the language; so he didn't bother downloading any of them since it would take too long for him to try and translate them.

When the last bell rang, signaling the end of school for the day, Harry gathered up his things and headed back to the Dursleys; taking a different route to his relatives' home in order to scour the ground for loose change and other items of interest. As soon as he walked through the back door, Harry dropped his rucksack off in his cupboard and started in on his chores in order to get them done as quickly as possible. That mainly involved raking up the dead leaves in both the front and back yards, picking up any trash that'd blown into the yards, and sweeping off the driveway and walkway.

The last two hours before supper would then be spent skimming through his school books in order to get an idea of what he'd be required to learn that term so he'd be prepared for the various exams. Tomorrow, he'd need to raid his teachers' lesson plans so he'd know what kind of homework, projects, and reports he'd be expected to hand in as well as when their periodical tests and quizzes were scheduled so he wouldn't miss any of them. His teachers might mostly ignore him and he might be willing to ditch class but he wouldn't cheat to give himself grades for things he didn't do.

He did, however, doctor his grades to ensure they were lower than what he actually got in order to avoid getting in trouble for 'cheating' since there was _no way_ he could be _smarter_ than the _perfect_ Dudley. He also made it a point to forge his aunt's signature on any progress reports that were handed out; there was no point in asking her to sign them herself since she wanted nothing to do with him or his education. The only time Aunt Petunia or Uncle Vernon saw his grades was when the school mailed them to the students' houses at the end of each quarter.

And since those had reflected his doctored grades ever since he'd taught himself how to use a computer two years ago (something he'd learned mostly by watching the teachers and admin staff at the school when they were overlooking his presence), he never had to worry about what his relatives saw.

* * *

 _Monday, September 30, 2019 6:02 AM  
No. 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey_

It was with a heavy heart that Harry logged out of Sword Art Online for what would be the last time; today was the final day of the Beta Test.

He was really going to miss playing every day. Harry knew that the full version of the game would be out during the first week of November but he didn't know if Uncle Vernon had pre-ordered it or not before Dudley had thrown everything out. There had been a game-wide announcement within Aincrad two days earlier that had said the pre-ordered copies of the software would be shipped out on the twenty-first of October but it hadn't told him if a copy had been ordered by his uncle or not.

He suspected that his uncle had pre-ordered the game for Dudley, since his cousin _had_ been rather excited about the game when it had first come out and before he'd gotten frustrated with the game due to his inability to read any of the instructions. Harry wouldn't know for certain until around the end of October or beginning of November though. Until then, all he could do was hope for the best, spend time improving his grasp of written Japanese, and focus on his school assignments in order to distract himself from the loss of his game time.

As he diligently closed the game out, shut off the computer, and put everything away, Harry silently reflected on the last twenty-eight days while he ignored the way the walls of his cupboard seemed to press in on him.

After school resumed and Harry had noticed that he was still having trouble sleeping in his cupboard, he'd done some research in the school library and on the internet to find out what was wrong with him. It took him nearly the entire first week before he stumbled across what he suspected was the answer; he'd developed claustrophobia. He hadn't really thought he was afraid of his cupboard but the whole having trouble breathing while the door of his cupboard was closed and feeling as if the walls were pressing in on him were both known 'symptoms' of the well documented phobia.

Harry thought it weird that it had taken so long for him to develop a fear of small, enclosed spaces (considering that he'd been living in the cupboard under the stairs for nearly his whole life). In truth, it was a combination of several factors that led to the development of his self-diagnosed anxiety disorder.

To start, Harry had been conditioned through the years to associate his cupboard with unhappiness due to the fact that he'd been unhappy since he'd been given to his relatives and that they had made him spend a considerable amount of time in the cupboard throughout the years he'd lived with them. He just hadn't really noticed that unhappiness sooner since he hadn't really been happy anywhere else either and therefore had nothing to compare it to. On top of that, the cupboard had come to represent a prison in Harry's mind since he was always being locked inside of it when he was being punished.

Additionally, his aunt and uncle often restricted his freedom and most of the time, they did so by sending him to the cupboard whether he was in trouble or not and setting foot outside of his cupboard after that would see him getting in trouble for disobeying a direct order. That wasn't even touching on the musty smell of the cupboard due to the amount of dust that his relatives (most pointedly his heavyset uncle and cousin) knocked free each time they used the stairs. Until he first set foot in Aincrad, he hadn't even realized how unhappy he had been in his cupboard.

And that's because in Aincrad, he was free.

Free to choose what to do with his time. Free to go where he wanted to go, when he wanted to go. Free to think whatever he wanted to think. Free to do things _his_ way without fear of being punished. And free to be whoever he wanted to be.

It was so very hard for Harry to let go of those freedoms every time he logged out of the game. Even worse, the more time he spent in the game world, the harder it was to make himself leave Aincrad in order to return to the dreary prison that was his cupboard. He hadn't really realized just how much he _loathed_ living with the Dursleys until he'd finally experienced what his life could be like without them. Sure, he'd hated living with them before but that was nothing when compared to how he felt about the Dursley house now.

It was probably a good thing that Dudley wasn't there or Harry might have been tempted to take his growing frustration with his living arrangements out on his cousin the next time the tub of lard tried to get him in trouble. Of course, doing such a thing would undoubtedly land him in even deeper trouble but it was the principle of the matter; Harry was fed up with being his relatives' figurative punching bag, unappreciated slave (they _constantly_ forced him to 'work' for his basic necessities – such as food and clothes), and all around scapegoat.

Then there was the fact that the NPCs he dealt with in the game (because he did his best to avoid the other Players like the plague because he still couldn't speak Japanese) all acknowledged him while his relatives, the neighbors, his peers, and his teachers all ignored him or actively shunned him in the case of his relatives. Harry didn't like the way everyone he encountered in real life acted like he didn't exist now that he finally knew what it felt like to be treated like an actual person thanks to the computer generated characters in the game.

It was more than a little sad to think that the only recognition he had ever received was from bits of code in a game.

Unfortunately, he couldn't exactly leave the Dursleys; he was still just a child, after all. So he was basically stuck with his relatives until he reached adulthood. And the knowledge that he couldn't do anything to change that made him feel trapped; hence the reason why he'd rapidly developed claustrophobia over the past two months.

Harry let out a huff of frustration due to the direction that his thoughts were currently taking and firmly shoved his growing discontent out of his mind as he got dressed for the day so that he could get ready for school. As he sat down to put on his shoes, Harry's thoughts wandered back to Aincrad and everything that he'd accomplished in-game over the past four weeks.

Once Harry had fully translated his Player Menu, he'd taken the time to memorize what each option on the Menu did and where each particular option was located so that he would be able to navigate through the Menu without the trouble that he'd had before he'd looked up those translations. That was how he'd learned that he could upload documents from the computer to the game; a feature that allowed him to move a copy of his translations into the game where they'd be easier to reference if he forgot what a particular word meant or where a particular section of the Player Menu was found.

He'd also used that function to transfer the program software for a Japanese to English Dictionary (which was easier to use to look up new Japanese words in than an English to Japanese Dictionary) and a list of common Japanese phrases (as well as their English equivalents) into the game where the data had been converted into a couple of Book Items that he could keep in his Inventory for future reference while he was inside the game.

Once he had those Items on hand, he could move through the game with far more confidence and he started leaving Hajimari no Machi and the fields around it in order to explore the rest of Aincrad's first and largest floor. Though he hadn't bothered to leave the first level in order to explore the other floors that had been unlocked by the rest of the Beta Testers (last he'd heard, they'd just reached the Fifteenth Floor on the twenty-ninth); he had no interest in conquering the game – he just wanted to explore the virtual world that had become his home in his mind.

And there was the fact that he hadn't even finished exploring every inch of the First Floor before the Beta Test had ended; there'd been no reason for him to rush and he'd spent hours just drinking in the various hidden paradises that he had stumbled upon in his wanderings.

He had, on the other hand, learned a ton about the different Towns, Dungeons, and Monsters that could be found on the First Floor. He'd also learned a lot more about the in-game Player Options and corrected a bunch of mistakes he'd made when he'd first set up his account. One of the biggest mistakes he'd made was to set his character's 'class type' as a 'Ranged Fighter' rather than a 'Melee Fighter' and then chose a sword as his default weapon; hence the reason why he hadn't been able to use a sword in the game – his character hadn't been pre-programmed to use one.

Harry had fixed that little mistake by changing his default weapon to a Bow; he had no interest in making any further attempts to master the sword after he'd killed himself with one so many times.

Another thing he had changed on his account was his name. Previously, he'd just had 'Harry' as his name since he'd used his name repeatedly when filling out his account info since he hadn't known what field was meant for what info aside from the ones that required numbers. He'd fixed his information and luckily hadn't lost his character in the process. His new in-game name had been designated as Joe Bloggs; a name commonly used in reference to individuals whose names are unknown or when making a general reference to the average person without naming specific names.

He'd chosen that particular name on a whim and because it was a name that couldn't really be traced back to him. There was also the fact that no one really knew him as Harry Potter outside of his relatives and the weird old lady from a few streets over that sometimes babysat him when the Dursleys went out and if he was going to be stuck as an anonymous entity, then he figured that he might as well have the name to go with it.

After fixing all of the mistakes that he'd made when he first set up his account, Harry had fixed his Avatar; tweaking his appearance so that he looked just a little less like himself – though he'd kept his black hair and green eyes. He'd also upgraded his clothes so that he didn't look quite so much like a ruffian in the game. A side affect of changing his clothes was an increase in Stats but he didn't really pay all that much attention to that since he wasn't really all that worried about leveling up or clearing the game.

In fact, while Harry still fought off any Monsters that he encountered, he no longer actually went looking for Monsters in the game; he was perfectly content just to explore the world. His continued explorations also had an unintentional side effect of gaining him Skill Points for his Equipped and Unarmed Skills. He'd even managed to master four of the Skills without even trying. Those Skills were Navigation, Hiding, Tracking, and Sneaking. His Archery, Detection, Searching, Hunting, and Scouting Skills were all fairly high as well.

He hadn't put in as much effort in his final two Skills, Listening and Escape since he didn't really have anything to do with the other Players or NPCs (which is where Listening was used most – though it could be used to listen for Monsters too) and he never really tried to flee from a battle (which is what Escape allowed a Player to do). He much preferred to avoid the other Players and those Monsters he couldn't sneak around, he fought to the death; either theirs or his own. The only battles that he had fled from had usually been the ones where he was seriously outclassed and he was short on time and therefore didn't want to waste time by being sent all the way back to Hajimari.

Despite not focusing on Leveling Up his character, Harry still managed to make it up to level twenty within the game; mostly because he'd started sneaking on twice a day during the final two weeks of the game due to how limited his remaining game time had been. So, instead of getting only two or three hours per day (depending on what time he woke up), he'd been spending five and six hours in the game per day; half in the early morning and half at night. Doing so really wrecked havoc on his sleep schedule but Harry took to napping during classes to make up for his late nights.

As he slipped out the back door and headed to school, Harry turned his thoughts towards what he was going to do now that he would no longer be able to visit Aincrad (the server would be shut down by the time he had another chance to sneak onto the computer). After thinking about it for a while, Harry supposed that he could try his hand at playing some of the other games that Dudley had thrown out back in August. Most of them were educational in nature; so playing them would probably help him with his school work.

He also supposed that he could find a way to get his hands on the software for a Japanese Tutorial Program that he could install on the computer. He could also see if Dudley's old CD player (the one he'd gotten for his ninth birthday) had been tossed into his playroom after receiving a new one for his eleventh birthday and check out a CD that would teach him how to speak Japanese from the library. Between checking out those others games and improving his grasp of Japanese, Harry figured he'd have enough distractions to get through the next several weeks while he waited to see if his uncle had pre-ordered the full version of SAO.

Once he thought he knew how he could keep himself from going crazy with boredom, Harry knew he just had to wait for a chance to raid Dudley's playroom.

He'd get his chance far sooner than he anticipated when his aunt and uncle decided to visit Marge on the Saturday after his last visit to Aincrad. Harry was sent to spend the day with the weird old lady with a ton of creepy cats by the name of Arabella Figg that lived a couple of streets over (because his relatives didn't trust him in the house alone) but he gave Mrs. Figg the slip less than an hour after the Dursleys had left. All it had taken was an offer to take out the trash for her and him accidentally holding the door open wide enough for several of her cats to dart out through his legs.

The poor women nearly had a heart attack over her cats escaping but Harry quickly promised to round them up for her (since he _had_ been the one to let them out). Mrs. Figg was more than happy to let him chase the cats down and once he was out of her sight, he'd promptly snuck straight back to Privet Drive and 'broke' into the back door using the spare key that he'd hidden in the garden two years earlier for just such occasions. Harry then hurried upstairs in order to search through Dudley's playroom for his CD player, a set of headphones, and anything else useful.

After the first half hour of looking (in which he'd found the tangled headphones), Harry slipped back outside to hunt down one of the loose cats and returned the cat to Mrs. Figg's house (to prove he was actually looking for them). He then ran all the way back to his relatives' place in order to continue his treasure hunt. It was the most exercise he'd had since he'd first logged into SAO but despite how tired he was by the time he'd found the CD player, eight pounds in loose change and small bills, and recaptured all of the cats, he was feeling rather proud of himself.

After catching the final cat, Harry actually took him to the Dursleys with him and let the cat have a small bowl of milk (as a treat to keep him occupied) while he snuck into Dudley's bedroom to steal his public library card (since his cousin had absolutely no interest in using it because he hated reading) and gather up any money that Dudley had left lying around his room. He didn't take too much of the money and most of what he took were the smallest bills and loose change that Dudley ignored because he preferred the higher denomination bills so he could buy more when he took it to the store.

The last thing he did before he cleaned up the messes he and the cat had made in the house (and after he'd hidden his new acquisitions in his cupboard) was to dig through the cushions on Uncle Vernon's favorite chair and on the couch to look for more loose change. He then collected the cat, who he thought was named Mr. Tibbles, locked the back door, and headed back to Mrs. Figg's house. He made certain to thank the cat in his arms for cooperating with him while he snuck about and he might have been imagining it but he was certain that the cat had winked at him in return.

Once he got the cat he was carrying back to Mrs. Figg's house, Harry would spend the rest of the time she was supposed to be 'babysitting' him helping her bathe, groom, and feed all of her cats. Strangely enough, most of Mrs. Figg's cats didn't mind being given baths unlike normal domestic felines and Harry escaped the chore without a single scratch. Even creepier was the fact that the small horde of cats actually lined up to wait their turn for their baths and it weirded Harry out because that was _not_ natural behavior for cats.

The other weird thing was the fact that Mrs. Figg was the only neighbor that ever looked twice at Harry and who consistently remembered his name. She was also the only neighbor that Aunt Petunia had ever spoken to about him and Harry figured that was strictly because she babysat him whenever the Dursleys wanted to go somewhere. Harry didn't know if that was a good thing or not. Aside from the fact that her cats were creepy smart and willing to help him escape the house for hours (they were behaved enough not to rush out the door whenever Mrs. Figg opened it), he never felt very comfortable there.

The house always stank of overcooked cabbage and cat (two smells that _did_ not go well together). Mrs. Figg never stopped chatting about her cats; telling Harry the _same_ exact stories each and _every_ time he was dropped off for her to watch. The cats often stared at Harry or behaved in ways that were unnatural (such as lining up for bath time or carrying their food dishes around when they wanted food). The candies and treats Mrs. Figg offered him were always stale, hard as rocks, or tasted funny. And Mrs. Figg always asked him if anything weird ever happened around him.

Strangely enough, she always seemed so disappointed when he told her no.

Harry soon pushed the weirdness that surrounded his infrequent babysitter out of his mind as he finished drying off the cat that he'd just bathed and turned to clean out the tub so he could prepare the next cat's bath. Several hours later, all of Mrs. Figg's countless cats were clean and fed and a tired Harry was reluctantly collected by his aunt so that he could do the chores he hadn't been able to do while he'd at Mrs. Figg's before it got too dark out to see.

That night, after his aunt and uncle had gone to bed, Harry took the time to organize the stuff he'd snuck from Dudley's rooms earlier that day so that he wouldn't get caught with those things that he wasn't supposed to have; which was basically everything he'd just 'stolen'. He would then spend the rest of the time he'd usually spend in Aincrad (since he knew he couldn't go back – he'd tried Monday night and received an 'Access Denied' message for his trouble) playing one of the mathematical games that he'd salvaged back in August.

There were a couple of other non-educational games that Harry could have played but he wasn't interested in shooting up people or aliens and he unconsciously avoided the other 'sword-based' games like the plague.

* * *

 **Translations:** Japanese to English

Hajimari no Machi – Starting City or Town of Beginnings  
Ken no Sekai – Sword Art Online  
Sosei-sha no Ma – Room of Resurrection

 **Game Terminology:**

Avatar – the term for a playable character that a player uses during game play  
Dive – short for FullDive  
Dungeon – an area within the game where players can attack or be attacked by Monsters (or other players)  
Experience Points – the points earned for each quest completed and each Monster killed  
FullDive – the use of technology to fully immerse one's conscience in a virtual reality  
GM – **G** ame **M** oderator: a group of players that were hired or that volunteered to help the rest of the players by answering questions about the game, police those players breaking the rules, and collecting information about bugs found within the game so that they could be fixed  
Melee Fighter – a warrior class character that fights up close (usually with hand to hand combat or a hand-held weapon designed for slashing, stabbing, or bashing)  
NERDLES – **Ner** ve **D** irect **L** inkage **E** nvironment **S** ystem (a surgically implanted chip that allows the FullDive system to interface with the brain – the surgically implanted part may or may not be canon as it was something I thought seemed more logical than it just being part of the interface helmet)  
NerveGear – equipment created by Kayaba Akihiko (Argus); allows the user to enter FullDive  
NPC – **N** on- **P** layer **C** haracter  
Player – an in-game character that is 'played' by a human  
Player Stats – a list of a player's in game statistics and skills  
Ranged Fighter – a warrior class character that fights from a distance  
Respawn – a reset of the player's (or Monster's) character after the character has 'died' within the game  
SAO – **S** word **A** rt **O** nline  
Skills – set abilities that can be performed by characters/players in a game  
Skill Points – Experience points that are applied towards mastery of an in game skill

 **Notes:**

* This is the name of Harry & Dudley's primary school according to the HP Wiki and is referenced as such in at least one of the movies as well as in the Trading Card Game and on Pottermore though it is possible that Grogory is actually a misspelling of Gregory. I've used Grogory here because it is supposed to be the canon name.

* * *

Harry's Game Data/Stats (End of Beta Test):

 **Category:** Human Player  
 **Caste:** Warrior  
 **Class:** Ranged Fighter  
 **Type** : Bowman  
 **Level:** 20  
 **HP:** 3675/3675  
 **Cor:** 13,345  
 **Attributes:** DEF [12], ATK [25], STR [05], AGI [10], STM [05], & LCK [10]  
 **Unspent Stat Points:** [77]*

 **Main Equipment:**

Oak Longbow – Reliable Bow accurate up to 200 yards +10 ATK  
Oak Arrows – Good quality Arrows; oak shafts fletched with crow feathers & tipped with bone Arrowheads +5 ATK  
Hardy Boots – Sturdy boots that make some noise: +1 DEF  
Leather Gloves – Sturdy gloves that protect a player's hands: +1 DEF  
Leather Clothes – Sturdy clothes that protect a player's body: +5 DEF  
Basic Cloak – A standard cloak with no special capabilities

 **Equipped Skills:** 08 Slots  
(Basic 1-250 pts, Advanced 251-500 pts, Proficient 501-750 pts, Expert 751-999 pts, & Master 1000 pts)

Archery – 0863  
Detection – 0812  
Hiding – 1000  
Hunting – 0702  
Listening – 0456  
Searching – 0849  
Sneak – 1000  
Tracking – 1000

 **Unarmed Skills:** 03 Slots

Escape – 0548  
Navigation – 1000  
Scouting – 0818

 **Notes:** To calculate the HP for any given level I used the following formula: [175(L – 1) + 350] where L = player's level and 350 represents a player's HP at level one. So, using Harry's beta level (20) as an example; [175(20-1) + 350 = 3675]

* Three Stat Points are awarded to a Player for every level gained according to SAO Wiki Page so the number of unspent points that Harry has is the 57 seven he earned for gaining 19 levels plus the original 20 that he never spent because he didn't know what to do with them since he'd never played an RPG game before Diving into SAO and I had to have him overlook something because he's only nine and not perfect.

* * *

 **AN:** _This chapter has a few similarities with the first two chapters of Magic Online; mostly due to the fact that they were covering the same time period. That said, there are differences between the two that can be picked out; such as Dudley being off at Smeltings (a continuity error in Magic Online because he should have been at Smeltings in that one too but I'd forgotten that when writing it and never bothered to go back and fix it)._

 _Okay, nothing else to comment on here, I think. Anyway, the next chapter of this story will be posted the weekend AFTER next as next weekend I"ll be updating Twice Blessed Shinobi again after being hit with inspiration for that story this week. If I just confused you, you can check out my author's page for posting dates. For now, I'll let you all go with a huge thank you for all of the reads and reviews this story has gotten as well as thank everyone who has put it on their favorites or alter lists or in their communities! ~ Jenn_


	4. The Trap That Set Him Free

**Disclaimer:** _Usually, I write out a very specific disclaimer explaining exactly what it is I don't own but once again I find myself not really interested in doing so for this story as it's very tedious. Suffice it to say I own nothing that was created by anyone else and I'm making no money whatsoever from the writing of this FanFiction._

 **Warnings:** _Mild to moderate violence, character death, foul language, alternate universe (i.e. kiss HP canon goodbye), angst, drama, starts pre-Hogwarts Era, original Quests, some minor religious themes, and who knows what else._

 **AN1:** _This story is self-beta'd; so there may be occasional grammatical or spelling errors that crop up every now and then and for those I apologize in advance._

* * *

Chapter Four: The Trap That Set Him Free

 _Saturday, November 02, 2019 9:15 AM  
No. 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey_

A despondent Harry petulantly scowled at the breakfast dishes that he was washing while he tried not to grow upset about the fact that the full version of SAO had not yet shown up and the game was due to go live in just four days. He'd known it would take a while for the shipment to get from Japan to England but it had been nearly two weeks now and the software _still_ hadn't arrived. Or, at least, he didn't think it had; it was possible that it had and his aunt had either put it in Dudley's room or given it to Uncle Vernon. It was also possible that his uncle had returned it to get his money back.

Harry thought it was far more likely that Uncle Vernon hadn't ordered it in the first place due to the fact that neither of his relatives had mentioned the game once in the past three months let alone the last two weeks. Nor had they actually realized that Dudley's computer had been thrown out yet; Dudley hadn't told them and Aunt Petunia never paid attention to all of the junk in either of Dudley's rooms while Uncle Vernon never set foot inside either room even when Dudley _was_ home – hence the reason why Harry could get away with taking things out of Dudley's playroom.

Harry just hoped that Dudley wasn't planning to accuse Harry of stealing the computer when he came home for winter break. Actually, now that he thought about it, Harry wouldn't be all that surprised if that was exactly what his cousin planned to do. Blaming it on Harry months after the fact (and during a time when Dudley himself hadn't even been home to 'protect' his things) would see Harry punished harshly for the 'lost' computer and gaming equipment as well as see Dudley getting away with throwing out the costly gift.

Along with a high possibly that his cousin would be 'rewarded' with replacements to make up for the 'loss'.

As he scraped the dried egg out of the skillet that his aunt had used to cook breakfast in, Harry considered how he would go about protecting himself from Dudley's potential accusation. Well, if the full version of SAO never arrived, he could easily hide the computer in Dudley's playroom under all of the clutter in there. That would at least prevent him from being caught red-handed with the thing. If by some miracle the software did arrive, then Harry would have to figure out a way to implicate someone other than himself in the 'theft' of the device.

Harry really hoped the software did show up even if he knew it would be better for him if it didn't because then there'd be no reason for him to hold onto the computer any longer.

He desperately wanted to return to Aincrad though; the game world had quickly become home to him and there was no place he'd rather be than Aincrad. He longed for the freedom he had inside of the game and for the life he'd made for himself inside of the virtual reality game; a life that was nothing at all like his real life. In the game, he was plain ole Joe the Archer; a reclusive explorer and hunter that wandered the world by choice. In the game, there was no one ordering him around, no one telling him he was a waste of space, and no one blaming him for every little thing that went wrong.

Harry was pulled out of his introspection by the sound of the mail flap squeaking open and he felt a sharp surge of hope well up inside of him when he heard the sound of a heavier than normal package hit the floor. There was a good chance that the software he'd been waiting for all this time had finally arrived. Better yet, his aunt and uncle were far too caught up in watching the morning news in the dining room and finishing their breakfast to realize the post had arrived. Harry quickly set the pan he'd been washing back in the soapy water and dried off his hands before he dashed to the front door.

It took but a couple of seconds for him to collect everything from the floor and his hands fairly shook when he saw the Argus Company logo combined with the achingly familiar SAO logo on the thick, plastic wrapped cardboard packet that had been shoved through the slot. Hardly daring to breathe, his heart pounding like crazy, Harry hurried to his cupboard under the stairs and shoved the package beneath his mattress before he hurried to the dining room to place the rest of the mail on the table beside his uncle.

He then scampered back into the kitchen to finish washing the dishes so that he could start on the rest of his chores; the sooner he got said chores finished, the sooner he could open the game to check it out. Even knowing he'd have to wait at least another four days before he could play the game didn't dampen his newfound excitement as he diligently rinsed the pan he'd just finished washing while making certain he'd gotten all of the egg off of the sides of the pan. Biting his lip as he dried the skillet and put it back where it belonged, Harry tried to ignore the giddiness he now felt.

He also did his best to ignore the fear that lurked just beneath his growing excitement; there was still a chance that he could be caught with either the game disk or the computer, after all. Despite the fear of being punished, Harry found it nearly impossible to keep his excitement bottled up inside him but it was something he had to force himself to do lest the Dursleys got suspicious of his behavior and searched his cupboard. Still, every so often he couldn't help the huge grin that would spread across his face for a few seconds before he could wipe it from his face.

Only four more days until he could go _home_.

That night, as soon as his aunt and uncle were in bed, Harry installed the new full version of the SAO software directly over the Beta Version rather than uninstalling the Beta Version first like the directions instructed him to do. It was a small mistake that was made because he hadn't actually bothered translating the installation directions in the first place since he already knew how to install software. The fact that he'd unintentionally selected a manual install instead of the automatic install meant that the install program didn't remove it for him during the process.

Harry never really noticed that he'd made a mistake though; he was far too caught up in his excitement over being able to return to Aincrad in just a few short days.

* * *

 _Wednesday, November 06, 2019 4:52 AM  
No. 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey_

Harry was vibrating with suppressed excitement.

He'd been awake for almost two hours and he'd spent most of that time counting down the minutes until the Live Version of SAO went online. He'd tried burning some of that time by playing the other games he'd grown quite familiar with after the Beta Test had ended but he hadn't been able to concentrate on any of them and so had given up trying. Even the cutesy little Japanese game that he'd checked out of Little Whinging's Public Library to improve his Japanese had only managed to distract him for a whopping eleven minutes and he liked that game!

After the first thirty minutes had passed, Harry had initiated a Window's Cleanup followed by a Disk Defrag of the main drive in order to kill some time. Harry would then split his time between making certain the computer didn't slip into sleep mode and flipping through the game play guide that had come with the new software; the nine year old mostly just looking at the pictures rather than translating the instructions. By the time both system programs had finished running, Harry had killed another hour and he couldn't help but grumble under his breath about how slowly time was passing.

Feeling rather antsy, Harry attempted to waste another few minutes by checking through the folder he'd set up for all of the stuff he intended to upload into his Inventory in the game once he logged in. Since he didn't know if he'd be able to keep everything he'd had on him when the Beta Test had ended, he needed to be able to upload a copy of his translations of the in-game signs and Menus, the Japanese to English Dictionary, and the list of common phrases (and their English equivalents) if he lost his other copies.

He even had copies of an English Dictionary, an English Thesaurus, a Japanese Thesaurus, and quick reference guides for all four of the Japanese alphabets that he'd downloaded from the internet after the Beta Test had ended. He'd also collected a bunch of stuff for the subjects he was currently taking in school but he didn't expect to upload them to the game; those were mostly just programs and electronic worksheets that he'd collected to give him something to do while he'd been waiting for the full version of SAO to go live.

Once he'd finished with that, all that was really left for him to do was wait for five o'clock to roll around so that he could turn his purloined NerveGear on, load the game, and Dive back into the world he saw as his true home. The next time he glanced at the clock, he was pleased to note that there were less than eight minutes left until the designated launch time and Harry had to suppress a squeal of excitement lest he wake up his aunt and uncle. The only thing that made Harry unhappy was the fact that the launch time was set so close to the time he had to be up for the day and therefore wouldn't get more than an hour, maybe an hour and a half of game time before he had to get ready for school.

Aside from the limited time he'd have to play, the fact that the game's opening day was on a school day wasn't that big of a deal for him; he had been playing games (including the SAO Beta) around his school hours for months.

What Harry didn't know was that Kayaba Akihiko had purposefully picked a date and time when most underage gamers (especially those that were under the age of fifteen) would be in school and therefore less likely to be amongst the ten thousand players logging on in the first two or three hours of the game. He'd also created a filter that would block those accounts registered to birthdates that fell within a certain time frame; though that wouldn't stop those logging in under someone else's account or those that added a year or ten to their actual age from slipping through the cracks.

Harry was just such a person; not only should he not have had time to log in that morning but his account should have been blocked because his birthdate fell within the range that Kayaba had blocked. Harry had added a full decade to his birthdate though because his Avatar looked like an adult and because he was also too young to have a NERDLES. He might be willing to risk the Dursleys' wrath to rescue Dudley's computer or court expulsion with some of the stunts he pulled at school (like doctoring his grades) but that didn't mean he wanted to be caught breaking the law.

Even if those regulations didn't count as laws, he'd still be in trouble because he was too young to have had the device implanted. He was sure they wouldn't throw him in jail either way because he was underage but that didn't mean that they wouldn't punish the Dursleys for him having NERDLES because they were his guardians and they would have technically had to have given permission for him to get one. And if that happened, he'd be in big trouble with his aunt and uncle for causing trouble for them.

Something he wished to avoid at all costs; if only because his life with them was miserable enough without giving them an actual reason to hate him on top of the issues they already had with his existence.

Shoving the unimportant thoughts out of his mind, Harry checked his watch again; only five more minutes left now.

Harry felt his cheeks start to ache due to the wide grin he was sporting as he clicked on the desktop shortcut to the game in order to let the software start loading while his entire being filled with anticipation. He briefly wondered if he would run into any of the other Beta Testers he'd seen around during the seven weeks he'd spent exploring the Beta Version of the game during the short amount of time he had that morning to play before he shrugged and promptly turned his thoughts back to the actual game. It really didn't matter if he ran into any of them or not.

It wasn't like he'd made friends with any of the other testers. Or even talked to them for that matter.

That brief bit of internal speculation had taken up another two minutes of time and Harry was pleased to see that there was now less than three minutes remaining before he could go home. Eager to start and not wishing to lose even a single second of the limited time he had to play that morning, he turned on the NerveGear and checked to make certain everything else was set (testing the cables and connectors for loose connections) before he put the helmet on and twisted around to lay down on his mattress; taking the time to get himself comfortable.

Taking a deep breath, he watched the clock on virtual display of the helmet's screen slowly count down the final seconds before he whispered, "Link start."

An explosion of colors rushed before his eyes and then the Never Gear was syncing the newly installed game software to his brain; testing each of his five senses and confirming his previous calibration settings. In less than two minutes, he had been logged into the game with an open System Window in front of him. It took him several precious seconds to determine that he had a choice between making a New Avatar and importing his Beta Avatar. After a brief debate, he chose to use his Beta Avatar rather than start over from scratch with a new one since it would take too long to set it up.

Once he'd made his selection, the welcome screen flashed at him for all of two seconds before an array of blue filled his vision as he was transported into the game where he soon found himself standing in the middle of a familiar stone plaza in the middle of Hajimari no Machi wearing his character's default outfit of brown pants, a brown and tan long sleeve shirt, leather boots, and a leather chest plate.

Harry let out a whoop of sheer joy the moment his eyes fell on the Koku Tetsu Kyuu that sat just north of the plaza; he was _finally_ home.

Dozens of people began appearing on all sides in flashes of blue light and Harry quickly slipped out of the plaza in order to avoid getting trampled on by the any of the other nine thousand, nine hundred, ninety-nine players that had purchased the game. He was leisurely walking through one of the many market places that littered the city when he was nearly run over by a vaguely familiar black haired man wearing brown pants, long sleeved dark blue shirt, and leather armor that he briefly recalled seeing pass through Sosei-sha no Ma once or twice during the Beta Test.

He'd never actually spoken to the other guy though and felt no need to chase after him and introduce himself to the man now; especially not after he'd noticed another man with long pinkish-red hair wearing dark brown pants, a white shirt, and leather armor chasing after the guy he'd thought was a Beta Tester. Harry didn't need any trouble when he'd only just arrived and had so little time to reacquaint himself with the world that had become his home before he had to log out and get ready for school.

Putting the two men out of his mind, Harry headed down to the lake that sat to the south of the Central Plaza and found an out of the way bench where he wouldn't be bothered by other players and took the time to scan through his Menu and check his Stats. He was a little sad to learn that his character had been reset to level one (from level twenty) and that his Skill Points had all been dropped down to two hundred points each but he didn't stay down for long too. It would have been far worse if he'd chosen to create a new Avatar.

By importing his Beta Avatar, he'd at least got to keep his final Skill set; it would've been a real pain to have to unlock each of those Skills again. What Harry didn't realize was that his acquired Skills should have been completely erased and the number of open Skill Slots available limited to six (four Equipped and two Unarmed) until he unlocked more through the game. This little discrepancy would be just one of the many 'conflicts' that his installation of the Full Version of SAO over the Beta Version had introduced to his Character and Menu.

He was also happy to discover that he had a Basic Bow and Basic Arrows in his Inventory; though he pouted over the loss of his Oak Longbow and Oak Arrows that he'd acquired during the second to last week of the Beta Test. Still, it could have been worse; he might have had to waste time and money finding a Bow for sale like he had to when he first started visiting the Dungeons during the Beta Test due to the mistake that he'd made in selecting his starting weapon during his initial account set up.

Since he'd eliminated that mistake prior to importing his Beta Avatar, he didn't have to deal with it this time around. Instead, he could splurge a bit and purchase a couple of Healing Potions and a Teleport Crystal or two to carry with him in case he lost track of time while out in the nearby Dungeon (where log out functions were sometimes limited) and didn't have time to walk back to a Safe Zone to log out.

Pulling up the Town Map (which he was pleased to note still showed the entire city – yet another aspect of his character that should have been reset but hadn't been), he scanned the listing of shops in the area to find the nearest one that sold Potions and Crystals. Once he found what he was looking for, he hurried there in the hopes of beating the other Players that intended to stock up using what money they had; Harry wrongly thinking that everyone in this version of the game started with the same amount of money that he'd noticed he had on hand.

Unbeknownst to Harry, a portion of the money that he'd had on hand at the end of the Beta Test had been transferred to his character's Money Vault and added to the starting amount that all new characters received when he'd imported his character. Even if he had known that he'd ended up with too much money for some reason, he would not have realized that the discrepancy had been caused by his installation mistake since his knowledge of computer programming and software conflicts caused by coding redundancies and errors was non-existent.

He was just a nine year old, after all.

One with above average intelligence and a high level of maturity, true, but still just a nine year old.

He was in luck; the Non-Player Character (NPC) running the store he'd entered had no other customers and still had what looked to be a full Inventory of basic merchandise. Since there was no line, Harry hurried forward to initiate the sale so that he could buy what he needed and get out of there in the shortest amount of time possible.

While Harry was shelling out several thousand Cor (the currency used in SAO) within the game; his magic was reacting to Harry's immersion into the virtual reality environment (much as it had that first night he'd used the system). This time it drew upon the complex blood wards that had been set around the Dursley's home (for both his protection and theirs) and twisted them in response to Harry's mental proclamation that the fictional world he'd just entered was his one true home (the Beta Version had only been a temporary preview of the game and therefore had not truly been seen as home; not like the full version was in Harry's mind).

It started by encasing his entire body in a protective shield that would prevent anyone from touching him and, more importantly, would prevent anyone from removing the NerveGear from his head. Next, his magic expanded outwards while the blood wards tied to the house sent tendrils of magic inwards to lock his cupboard from both the inside and the outside; effectively locking Harry into his closet and sealing the door shut. As the magic moved through the house, it acted upon the deepest wishes of both Harry and the adult Dursleys (specifically, his aunt); to be free of each other.

To that end, the magic removed all traces of Harry from the Dursleys' lives.

It even went so far as to completely remove any memories they had of Harry from the seven and a half years that he'd lived under their roof. When it finished, there was no evidence anywhere in the house or in the minds of its current occupants that Harry had ever existed (bar the hidden cupboard holding his unresponsive body); even his cupboard door had disappeared despite the fact that his cupboard still existed. The protective magics would remain active just long enough to wipe the mind of Mrs. Figg when she walked passed the house looking for Harry two days later before going dormant until the next time they were needed (which would be when Dudley returned home for the Winter Break).

In the game, Harry (completely unaware of the changes taking place in the real world) placed his new purchases in his Inventory, thanked the NPC Clerk, and exited the store. It was time for him to find out just how much of his previous Skills remained. He took a moment to set the alarm built into the Player Menu to go off at two-fifteen (or six-fifteen back in Surrey and the real world; the game clock set to Tokyo Time) so he wouldn't be late logging out. He then checked his map of the city again, in order to gain his bearings, before he headed towards the nearest exit so that he could enter the nearest Dungeon where he could scare up a couple of Monsters to test his reduced Archery Skill on.

Stepping out onto the grasslands that surrounded Hajimari no Machi, Harry let a wide grin stretch across his face as his green eyes lit up in delight over the familiar and much loved sight of rolling hills and endless fields that filled his vision.

Letting out a whoop of excitement, Harry trotted further away from town in order to avoid those Players that were hunting Monsters near the walls of Hajimari. He couldn't help but laugh out loud with each step he took as he drank in the familiar fields of Aincrad. After a couple hundred yards, he passed by the two men he'd seen running through the town earlier and swerved wide to avoid getting in their way as they fought a small group of Frenzy Boars (the Monsters that he'd once called Vernons before he'd learned their proper names).

Thirty minutes after leaving the town, Harry found a trio of Frenzy Boars that were grazing undisturbed and he prepared his first shot as he used Sneak to creep up on the Monsters. Once he was close enough, he fired an Arrow at the first Boar and hurriedly prepared another Arrow that he fired off ten seconds after the first one and that was immediately followed by a third. Before the Frenzy Boar had even finished turning in the direction after the first hit, the Monster had shattered in death.

The other two Frenzy Boars soon joined the first in death and Harry let out another whoop of glee over a successful hunt that hadn't seen him injured or killed in the process before he closed the three Reward Windows that had automatically opened after each death. Satisfied that he wasn't too rusty with his Bow and Arrows despite the drop in Skill Points and the long (to him) absence from the game, Harry took a leisurely route back to the city just so that he could drink in the magnificence that was Aincrad.

Each time he crossed paths with another Monster, he'd make short work of it unless another Player had already engaged the Monster. He also took care to swing wide around any Players that he happened to spot in the fields; he was far too intent on enjoying the familiar freedom of the wide open spaces that made up his _home_ to socialize with strangers. There was also the fact that he still didn't speak or understand all that much Japanese because he'd just barely started learning the language two months earlier and therefore couldn't really communicate with them unless they spoke English.

Not that he was in any hurry to find out since he had no real experience interacting with other people outside of his relatives (who wanted nothing to do with him anyway), Mrs. Figg (who was happiest when she was talking at him), and the occasional teacher at school (who rarely ever noticed that he even existed unless he approached them first).

Thinking about his slowly improving grasp of Japanese reminded Harry that he hadn't seen the copy of his translations and the dictionary in his Inventory when he'd looked earlier. He immediately sat down where he was (after checking for nearby Monsters) and waded through the Menu to the upload function and promptly initiated the copy function to replace them. While he waited for the rather large files to be uploaded, Harry dropped back on the ground and lazily watched what he thought looked like a flock of small red dragons soaring through the air above him.

The first file had barely just finished uploading when Harry's Menu Alarm sounded; a loud reminder that he had to log out of the game and get ready for school back in the real world.

Harry let out a loud groan in response to the sound; he did _not_ want to return to his wretched life with the Dursleys.

Grumbling under his breath about slave drivers and whiney whales disguised as pigs in suits, Harry shut off the alarm before he checked the progress of his uploads and wrinkled his nose in annoyance when he noticed the second file was still being copied from the PC. He reluctantly canceled the rest of the files in the queue and then sat up to keep an eye on both the upload progress of the second file (which happened to be the Japanese to English Dictionary) and the in-game clock. He didn't want to cancel the upload but he'd have to if it wasn't done by the time he absolutely had to log out.

Harry let out a soft sigh when the upload was completed less than ten minutes later and he closed out the Upload Page of his Menu in order to shift to the Player Settings Page where the log out button was located so that he could start getting ready for school. Harry frowned as he ran his finger down the available options and found the log out option missing. A quick check of his Map ensured that he hadn't accidentally stopped in a restricted area where the log out function would be blocked. Even if it had been blocked, the button would still be there; it would just be grayed out.

Knowing that his grasp of kanji wasn't all that good (though it was far better than it had been when he'd first joined the game during the Beta Test – thanks to the additional Japanese lessons that he'd taken after the Beta Test had ended), Harry tapped the Account Settings at the top of that Menu Page and toggled the written characters from kanji to romaji since the Romanized letters were much easier for him to muddle through. Once that was done, he quickly returned to the Main Settings Menu and tried to log out a second time; only when the last page in question opened he found that the log out option was still not there.

A brief check of the time showed that he still had ten minutes before his aunt would be downstairs to wake him up in order to help her with breakfast. Unfortunately, he had no idea how he was going to fix the missing button in little time he had remaining and had no clue as to who he could contact to fix it for him since he'd never had a need to deal with a Game Master (GM) in order to report a bug during the Beta Test. Even if he had known how to contact a GM, there was the little issue of him not knowing enough Japanese (written or spoken) to communicate through the game system.

Unable to think of what to do, Harry soon began to panic; he now only had three more minutes left until his aunt would expect him to join her in the kitchen in order to help her make breakfast for Uncle Vernon (minding the bacon and beans while she sliced tomatoes, fried the eggs, and made the toast).

If he didn't get up first, she would bang on the cupboard door to wake him up and when he didn't answer her, she'd open the door to yell at him and the moment she saw him wearing the NerveGear, she'd wrongly assume that he'd stolen Dudley's gaming equipment from his room (instead of out of the trash). As soon as she jumped to the conclusion that he was a thief, she'd screech for his uncle and they'd disconnect him from the game in order to yell at him before they punished him for daring to 'steal' Dudley's precious computer (the child completely unaware that his magic had taken measures to protect him from just such a situation).

Terror gripped the nine year old and he began hyperventilating as the mere thought of being discovered as a thief (which he sort of was since he hadn't had permission to take any of the things he'd snuck out of Dudley's playroom throughout the years) sent his imagination into overtime as his mind tortured him with the possible punishments that Uncle Vernon might come up with for daring to take Dudley's things. If he didn't log out right this minute, he was going to be in big, big trouble and he'd never again have the opportunity to return to the world that had become his home.

Simulated tears began pouring down his face as his personal clock registered two-thirty-two and he still was unable to log out. Pressing his hands over his mouth, stared at the game Menu without seeing it as realization set in; his relatives were going to be so angry with him. Hell, they might even be upset enough that they'd send him to a juvenile detention center for underage criminals or one of those horrible orphanages that his uncle ranted about all the time. Any way he looked at it, getting caught red-handed by his aunt and uncle would be ten times worse than being accused by Dudley.

Ten minutes later, when the log out option still hadn't been restored, Harry let out a scream of pure frustration.

Numbness set in when three o'clock (or seven o'clock London Time) rolled around and he was still trapped within the game. Confusion soon followed as it slowly dawned on him that no one had forcefully removed the NerveGear from his head in order to force him to return to reality despite the fact that another half an hour had passed. Fear soon began to claw at the back of his mind once more as he began to suspect that the only reason the Dursleys hadn't forcefully pulled him from the game was because they were waiting to see how long it took him to exit on his own.

And the longer he remained in game, the harsher his punishment was going to be.

His life was officially over.

The numbness returned when the clock displayed the time as four-oh-one.

He was now well over an hour and a half late and the log out option had still not been restored. Nor had he been forcibly logged out in order to shut the game down to allow the developers enough time to fix the problem before they rebooted the server and restarted the game. Overwhelmed by the knowledge that his life had just been ruined by the game, Harry collapsed to the ground and blindly stared at a bent blade of grass that sat just inches from his face as his mind conjured up all kinds of horrible punishments that the Dursleys would carry out once he finally made it out of the game.

He'd been drowning in a mixture of cold fear and numbness for exactly forty-nine minutes when he was drawn out of his waking nightmares by the loud toll of a bell repeatedly cutting through the air for several minutes. Once the ringing echoes faded into silence, Harry found himself engulfed in the blue light of a forced teleportation and he half feared and half hoped that that meant that the glitch had been discovered and he was being forcefully ejected out of the game so that the error could be fixed and the servers rebooted.

No such luck.

The moment the light cleared, Harry found himself back in Hajimari no Machi, standing in the middle of the large stone plaza where he'd first appeared when he'd logged into the game over four hours earlier alongside thousands of other Players. Not far from him, two additional pillars of blue light would deposit the two men he'd passed on his way out of town several hours ago at the same time as Harry opened his Player Menu once more in order to check and see if the log out function had been fixed; it hadn't.

As Harry closed his Menu again, thousands more pillars of blue light deposited other individuals in the area until Harry imagined that every single player in the game had been forcefully brought to the large area. When the last transport glow faded, the sky turned red as hundreds of flashing tags blocked out the sky as they declared that a system announcement was about to take place. Shortly after the last patch of blue sky vanished behind one of the tags, a figure poured out of the cracks between the flashing tags to tower over the gathered players.

The moment it was fully formed it began speaking and because he was still far too upset about not being able to log out, Harry ignored the man as he began weaving his way between the other players in an attempt to escape from the plaza in order to find a place where he could break down in privacy. If the man (who was most likely a GM) had been speaking English instead of Japanese, Harry probably would have paid far more attention to him and what he was saying. Had he done that, he would have learned that he and the rest of the Players that had logged in were now trapped in the game.

As it was, Harry never heard, let alone understood, a single word the guy said because he hadn't even listened to him.

The man in the sky was still talking when Harry walked face first into an invisible wall at the edge of the plaza that hadn't been there before. Unwilling to put up with being trapped in the one place where he'd always been free, Harry placed one hand flat against the unseen wall and began following the invisible barrier in an attempt to find the exit. The further he went without finding an opening, the more frantic he became as he tried to find a way to escape and it didn't take long for his traitorous mind to trick him into believing that he was running out of oxygen trapped inside of the Plaza with so many people the way he was.

Never mind the fact that his Avatar technically didn't even need oxygen because it was just a string of digital code inside of a computer server.

He was so wrapped up in his growing panic that he never noticed what was going on around him. He just kept right on testing the unseen barrier for a way out. He never heard the panicked and angry cries of the other Players in response to the things that the oversized GM was telling everyone. Nor did he notice it when the other Players were engulfed in columns of white lights as their created Avatars were replaced with accurate images of their true selves. He didn't even notice when the same white light attempted to engulf him as well only for it to fizz out when a coding error prevented it from transforming his Avatar into an exact replica of his actual face.

The only thing that mattered to Harry was breaking out of the plaza as he bashed his fists against the unseen barrier after he'd been unable to find an opening in it.

The invisible wall that had caged him in the plaza would disappear at the exact same moment that the GM in the sky disappeared from sight; not that Harry knew that. The instant the barrier vanished, Harry toppled forward onto the ground due to the way he'd been leaning and pounding on the invisible wall. It took him several minutes to understand what had happened and once he did, Harry sucked in great gulps of computer simulated fresh air for nearly two full minutes before he scrambled onto his feet in order to flee the area only for him to end up one the ground once again when an unfamiliar man crashed into him.

" _Gomen! Gomen!_ " the man with the short brown hair and a gold stripped red bandana offered as he hurriedly jumped off of Harry and pulled the nine year old to his feet while dusting him off. " _I didn't mean to run you over! Are you alright?_ "

Harry stared at the man without any comprehension before he shook his head and pulled himself free before he took off running in an attempt to get as far away from whomever it was that had just tried to lock him up inside of the Central Plaza. The man that had knocked him down would be forgotten the second he was no longer in Harry's sight; the nine year old's growing panic blotting everything but his need to escape out of his mind. He'd eventually end up in the back lot of a vacant building where he collapsed into a puddle of pathetic as he descended into a full blown panic attack.

By the time Harry had calmed down, night had fallen over Aincrad and he would nearly panic a second time when he noticed he'd been in the game for well over eight hours now and that the log out option was _still_ missing.

* * *

 **Translations:** Japanese to English

Gomen – I'm sorry (informal)  
Hajimari no Machi – Starting City or Town of Beginnings  
Ken no Sekai – Sword Art Online  
Koku Tetsu Kyuu – Black Iron Palace  
Sosei-sha no Ma – Room of Resurrection

 **Game Terminology:**

Aincrad – **A** n **Inc** arnating **Rad** ius (the name of the Castle that is SAO)  
Avatar – the term for a playable character that a player uses during game play  
Dive – short for FullDive  
Dungeon – an area within the game where players can attack or be attacked by Monsters (or other players)  
Experience Points – the points earned for each quest completed and each Monster killed  
FullDive – the use of technology to fully immerse one's conscience in a virtual reality  
GM – **G** ame **M** oderator  
NERDLES – **Ner** ve **D** irect **L** inkage **E** nvironment **S** ystem (a surgically implanted chip that allows the FullDive system to interface with the brain – the surgically implanted part may or may not be canon as it was something I thought seemed more logical than it just being part of the interface helmet)  
NerveGear – equipment created by Kayaba Akihiko (Argus); allows the user to enter FullDive  
NPC – **N** on- **P** layer **C** haracter  
Player – an in-game character that is 'played' by a human  
Player Stats – A list of a player's in game statistics and skills  
Ranged Fighter – a warrior class character that fights from a distance  
SAO – **S** word **A** rt **O** nline  
Skills – set abilities that can be performed by characters/players in a game  
Skill Points – Experience points that are applied towards mastery of an in game skill

* * *

Harry's Game Data/Stats (Start of Game):

 **Category:** Human Player  
 **Caste:** Warrior  
 **Class:** Ranged Fighter  
 **Type** : Bowman  
 **Level:** 01  
 **HP:** 350/350  
 **Cor:** 8,500 (5000 carried over from Beta)  
 **Attributes:** DEF [05], ATK [10], STR [05], AGI [10], STM [05], & LCK [10]  
 **Unspent Stat Points:** [40] (20 extra points carried over from Beta Test)

 **Main Equipment:**

Basic Bow – Flimsy Bow accurate up to 10 yards  
Basic Arrows – Low quality Arrows; pine shafts w/ sharpened points and fletched with pigeon feathers  
Old Boots – simple boots that make lots of noise  
Basic Clothes – clothing with no special capabilities

 **Equipped Skills:** 08 Slots (two extra slots carried over from Beta Test)  
(Basic 1-250 pts, Advanced 251-500 pts, Proficient 501-750 pts, Expert 751-999 pts, & Master 1000 pts)

Archery – 0200  
Detection – 0200  
Hiding – 0200  
Hunting – 0200  
Listening – 0200  
Searching – 0200  
Sneak – 0200  
Tracking – 0200

 **Unarmed Skills:** 03 (one extra slot carried over from Beta Test)

Escape – 0200  
Navigation – 0200  
Scouting – 0200

 **Notes:** To calculate the HP for any given level I used the following formula: [175(L – 1) + 350] where L = player's level and 350 represents a player's HP at level one. So, using Harry's beta level (20) as an example; [175(20-1) + 350 = 3675]

* * *

 **AN:** _This should be the last chapter that has any material extracted or copied and slightly altered from Magic Online in it; though there will still be a few sub-plots, theories, and the like that will pop up from time to time. Aside from that, this story deviates rather strongly from Magic Online (in case that hasn't been obvious in the material already posted) and most everything from this point forward (bar a sentence or paragraph here and there) will be brand new stuff written explicitly for this story._

 _The next update for this story will be the weekend after next (2-4-18) while next weekend will see Magic Online finally being updated as I finally finished the next chapter of that story after being stuck on it for months. As always, if you're looking for information when a story will be updated, you can always check my author's page where I keep a progress report of all my stories (posted, on-hold, & unposted) that's updated at least once a month with the latest info. You can also follow me on that site that lets you patronize your favorite creators. _

_For now, thanks for all of the review and adds and I hope you enjoy the chapter! ~ Jenn_


	5. Circumstantial Contentment

**Disclaimer:** _Usually, I write out a very specific disclaimer explaining exactly what it is I don't own but once again I find myself not really interested in doing so for this story as it's very tedious. Suffice it to say I own nothing that was created by anyone else and I'm making no money whatsoever from the writing of this FanFiction._

 **Warnings:** _Mild to moderate violence, character death, foul language, alternate universe (i.e. kiss HP canon goodbye), angst, drama, starts pre-Hogwarts Era, original Quests, some minor religious themes, and who knows what else._

 **AN1:** _This story is self-beta'd; so there may be occasional grammatical or spelling errors that crop up every now and then and for those I apologize in advance._

* * *

Chapter Five: Circumstantial Contentment

 _Wednesday, November 06, 2019 9:07 PM  
Unoccupied Building Lot, Hajimari no Machi, First Floor_

After avoiding a second panic attack by the skin of his teeth, Harry scrubbed his face for a moment to wipe off the tears before he reopened his Menu one more time. This time, instead of hunting for the missing log out option, he returned to the Upload Page to resume uploading the files he'd collected on the computer; he'd need the information in those files if he was going to figure out what was going on. While he waited for the files to be copied (and converted into Book Items in his Inventory), Harry watched the stars in the sky and tried to ignore the oddness of being in the game at night.

Once the final file had been copied over, Harry would spend the rest of the night painstakingly retranslating every single line and page in his Player Menu; going so far as to switch between the various Japanese alphabets in order to make certain his translations were the same regardless of which alphabet was used. He needed to make sure that he hadn't just missed the log out option (since it might have been moved). He even checked the Help Page to see if there was a new log out procedure.

Whenever he needed a break from the tedious work, he checked on the progress of his uploads or just listlessly stared at the shadows that covered the grounds of the building he was hiding behind. A couple of times, his thoughts drifted to the giant man that had appeared in the sky above the Central Plaza and he wondered if the man had told everyone what was going on but for the most part, he shied away from thinking about the time he'd spent in the plaza due to the panic he now associated with being trapped in the area with so many other people.

By the time that Harry finished translating his Menu in an attempt to scour it for a way out of the game, the sun was rising once more and Harry was at a loss as to what he should do now.

Harry would eventually recall that a Player's death usually provided an alternate way to exit the game but instead of rushing straight out to the nearest Dungeon for a quick death, he got up and headed for the Koku Tetsu Kyuu and the Sosei-sha no Ma. His reasoning…? He'd need to know if the respawned Players had a way to reliably log out aside from dying in the game because he did _not_ want to get stuck each time he logged on to play (Harry studiously ignoring the fact that gaining said information would actually require him to interact with the other Players).

That's _if_ he ever got the chance to log back into the game once he'd faced his relatives.

The moment that Harry stepped into the Sosei-sha no Ma, he knew there was something wrong with the room. To start, the room seemed far darker and more sinister than it had in the Beta Version of the game. Then there was the huge black wall that now sat near the front of the room right over the spot where Players used to respawn after dying. And the last difference was the new sign beside the entrance that displayed the words 'Seimei no Ishibumi' (which translated to Monument of Life according to his Japanese to English Dictionary) instead of the original 'Sosei-sha no Ma' sign.

After translating the room's new name, Harry nervously moved closer to inspect the polished stone wall at the front of the room and a shiver raced down his spine when he saw all of the names that had been etched into the black wall in alphabetical order. He felt more than a little queasy when he found his character's name on the wall with the other 'j' names. Even more worrisome was the way that some of the names had been crossed out with yesterday or today's date and a time etched beside them along with what he would soon learn was that Player's cause of death.

Moving away from the creepy wall, Harry made himself comfortable beside the entrance while he waited for one of the other Players to respawn. After the first hour of waiting in which the room had been briefly visited by a dozen different Players who'd all entered through the door like Harry but not a single respawned Player had appeared, Harry grew bored. He'd eventually pull out the little book of common Japanese sayings and useful phrases in order to work on his Japanese while he waited for a Player to respawn.

Throughout the day, several other Players would burst into the room to join Harry in his self-assigned vigil, more than a few of them begging and crying or ranting and raving for some reason, and stay for short periods of time before they left or were dragged off by others. A few of them even rushed up to Harry when they noticed him in the room and demanded to know if they'd seen such and such person respawn (at least, that was what he thought they were asking him based on the translation he'd looked up after the second time he'd been questioned) and they'd always start wailing the moment he shook his head no in reply.

After the sixth person had broken down in front of him in response to his silent reply to their question, Harry moved to the far corner of the room where the shadows were thickest and where he was far less likely to be approached by others as he continued to wait for a Player to respawn.

As the hours continued to pass without a single respawn and the number of distraught Players crowding the former Room of Resurrection continued to rise, Harry grew increasingly worried and sick to his stomach. When the sun set at the end of the day and there still hadn't been any respawned Players, Harry slipped away from the Black Iron Palace in order to get away from the other people in the room because their behavior and open shows of emotions were making him extremely uncomfortable (their tears reminding him of his panic attack).

He was also more than a little exhausted because he'd been awake for over twenty-four hours now but he hadn't wanted to fall asleep in a room filled with strangers. He was also hungry because he hadn't eaten anything for two days now but he didn't exactly know if there was food available in the game. Even if there was, he wasn't sure what good it would do to eat it because it wouldn't be _real_ food that he was eating. So, Harry ignored his hunger for now and simply made his way back to the yard of the vacant building that he'd spent the previous night in.

Upon arriving in the familiar yard, Harry hid himself between the shrubbery and the building where he'd be overlooked by the casual observer before he drifted off to sleep.

When he woke up the next morning, Harry huddled between the house and the bushes where he'd slept for nearly an hour; the nine year old shivering in fear due to the fact that he'd been locked in the game for over two days now. He was also very confused. Why hadn't the Dursleys' pulled the plug on the computer to force him out of the game? Why hadn't the missing log out button been restored? Why weren't any of the Players that had to have died in the Dungeons over the past couple of days respawning? Why were the other Players he'd seen so upset?

After being swallowed by his fears for over an hour, Harry forced himself to his feet and ignored the faint complaints from his 'empty' stomach as he made his way to the largest gathering of Players according to his map; the church. Once he reached the church, Harry hesitated outside of the building for several long minutes wondering if he'd be welcome there or not since he'd never before set foot in a church. Actually, there were many kinds of buildings that he hadn't been inside of both here in Aincrad and back in the real world.

Here, in the game, the only places Harry had gone inside of aside from the Black Iron Palace had been a handful of the shops that were scattered through the city. Even during the Beta Test, he'd avoided most of the buildings since there hadn't really been any reason for him to enter them and he'd been more interested in exploring the world rather than exploring a bunch of buildings where other Players hung out. Yet, now here he was, standing in front of a church with the intent of not only going inside but going inside to 'spy' on thousands of Players.

And he was going to spy on them.

He had no intention of flat out asking them what was going on; that would make him look stupid for not knowing and it would also reveal the fact that he really didn't know how to speak Japanese all that well and he didn't know if the other Players would be offended by that or not. (Harry well remembered the numerous angry rants that Uncle Vernon had made about lazy foreigners who didn't bother to learn English properly before coming to England; so, it stood to reason that because this was a Japanese game, they'd expect him to know Japanese too because he was there in the game.)

So, yes, he was going to step into the church and hide himself in a corner where he'd be overlooked and spend his time 'Listening' to the other Players talk amongst themselves without their permission.

And that was spying.

Swallowing his uncertainties, Harry mentally prepared himself for what he was about to do (much as he would when planning out his little secret rebellions against the Dursleys) and then slipped into the church using Sneak in order to draw as little attention to himself as possible. Once inside, he found himself in an empty atrium but could hear the rumble of many people speaking coming from behind the closed doors that led deeper into the church. Gathering his courage a second time, Harry snuck through the next set of doors and immediately found himself in a crowded room filled with long benches (what he'd later learn were called pews).

No one even glanced in Harry's direction as he eased the door shut behind him and stared wide-eyed at the large gathering of Players inside the church. He'd never seen so many people in once place before (if he ignored his forced teleportation to the plaza alongside all of the other Players in the game the other day). He hadn't even seen this many people during school assemblies at St. Grogory's. He'd known there were lots of people in here but he hadn't really thought about how many 'live' bodies that would mean would be present.

Harry very nearly turned tail and ran upon learning how many people were inside of the church but his need to know what was happening in the game kept him rooted to the floor.

It took him a few minutes to swallow the growing panic at being trapped with so many people inside of a building and once he could think clearly, he quickly moved away from the door and took a seat on one of the benches as far away from the other Players as possible and curled in on himself as he activated his Listening Skill. The soft murmur of multiple voices immediately turned into a dull roar of multiple conversations and Harry wished he'd thought to bring a Recording Crystal with him so he'd be able to record everything in order to review it later.

Since he didn't have a Recording Crystal, he simply focused on the loudest voices in turns as he did his best to translate everything he was hearing while he flipped through his Japanese to English Dictionary to look up those words he didn't know. The fact that all of the conversations focused on a small number of topics (each group focusing on a different aspect of those topics or how the topics made them feel) meant that it wasn't as hard of a task as it might have been otherwise.

It would still take Harry most of the day to understand what it was that everyone was talking (or in some cases yelling or whining) about and once he did understand, he grew numb.

Kayaba Akihiko (the creator of Sword Art Online) had imprisoned all ten thousand of the Players that had logged into the game on opening day on the server where the main program was housed. He'd basically taken ten thousand people hostage inside of the game. If that wasn't bad enough, he'd also learned that those people who died in the game were supposedly killed in real life by their NerveGear. And the reason that no Players had respawned in Sosei-sha no Ma since the game had started was because they were dead.

On top of that, he'd heard quite a few people in the church complain and curse about the Beta Testers and how the more 'experienced' Players had abandoned them immediately after Kayaba's speech. Hearing a bunch of people talking like that made Harry nervous because he had been a Beta Tester _and_ he wasn't exactly helping _any_ one in the game. Of course, Harry didn't really consider himself an experienced Player either; it's not like he really knew what he was doing half the time and he didn't know any secrets to beating the game since he hadn't properly played the game.

The very last thing that Harry had learned was that all of the Players had had their Avatars changed to reflect their real-life appearances. Or rather, all of the Players bar Harry (as far as Harry knew). For some reason, Harry's Avatar was the same exact Avatar he'd designed after he'd fixed the errors on his Beta Account once he'd finally managed to translate everything. He assumed it was because he'd never touched the Hand Mirror that Kayaba had gifted to all of the Players in the game; since none of their Avatars had changed until after they'd handled the Mirror.

In actuality, the reason his Avatar hadn't been scrubbed was due to the fact that he'd goofed on the installation and in doing so had created a software conflict that had prevented Harry's Avatar from being switched over like everyone else's had been. That was also far from the only conflict that had been created by his unintentional mistake. It was very similar to the glitch that had prevented his Character Skills and Stats from being completely reset and allowed for 'extras' to be transferred over from his Beta Account; like the extra Cor he'd had when he'd first logged in on the sixth.

However, the biggest conflict generated by the improper installation was in the coding responsible for generating the number of Experience Points gained with each Monster defeated or Quest completed. In the Full Version of SAO, the amount of XP earned had been cut in half when compared to the amount of XP that the Beta Testers had earned in the Beta Version in order to make the game more challenging. In Harry's case though, the coding responsible for calculating the XP Value of each Monster or Quest had been corrupted by his failure to delete the older version off of the computer.

So, instead of halving the amount of XP he gained, it added half again to the amount of XP; meaning that he would be earning one and a half times more Experience than the other Players.

Another significant glitch was the Randomized Monster Spawning Glitch that caused Monsters to spawn outside of the designated spawning locations that were assigned to each individual species. An example would be a Frenzy Boar appearing in a forest instead of on the plains. Two more examples would be several Monsters spawning directly beside Harry one right after another or possibly no Monsters spawning near him for an unnaturally long period of time. Not that Harry would really notice since he wasn't in the game to fight Monsters, he was there because it was his home.

The last major glitch that would seriously affect Harry's 'game play' throughout the duration of the Death Game was the one that would periodically hide him from the Cardinal System (the sophisticated program that ran the game) when he set foot in specific locations. That basically meant that the system running the game would lose track of Harry's existence from time to time for no apparent reason. The importance of this little glitch wouldn't be realized until long after the game ended though.

There were also other, little conflicts scattered throughout the game's programming but most of them were insignificant when compared to the Experience Calculator Glitch, the Randomized Monster Spawning Glitch, or the Vanishing Player Glitch.

Harry kept the Hand Mirror but took care to never actually take it out of his Inventory lest touching the Mirror caused his Avatar to be replaced with an image of his actual self. He didn't want people to know he was just a kid because adults had a habit of telling kids what they could and couldn't do and if Harry was going to be stuck in a virtual world with a bunch of adult strangers, then he wasn't going to let them tell him how to play the game. Nor was he going to let them tell him how he had to live inside of the game now that they were stuck there.

He'd gotten enough of that from the Dursleys and it had made him miserable for as long as he could remember.

And there was no way he was going to allow anyone else to make him miserable in Aincrad.

Not if he could help it.

When he returned to the vacant building that he'd been camping outside of for the last couple of days at sunset, Harry sat back down behind the shrubs that lined the wall at the back of the building and thought about what that he'd learned over the past several hours. He knew he should be scared over the fact that Kayaba had pretty much kidnapped him through the game but all he felt was numb inside and out. He should also be terrified of dying but he just couldn't bring himself to care since a type of death awaited him in the real world in the form of the Dursleys' wrath.

So, it didn't really matter if he lived or died in SAO because his real life was already over either way.

Not that Harry was at all sad over learning that he might never again have to see his relatives.

In fact, he was quite happy to be locked up inside of Aincrad because it meant that he'd never have to leave his home.

The moment that thought had passed through Harry's mind, the numbness that had gripped him since he'd gotten the answers to most of his questions had faded into a contented excitement. All of Aincrad sat at his fingertips now and he would never again have to force himself to walk away from his home in order to face his miserable existence in real life any more. Now, instead of spending a few stolen hours in the place he called home every day, he could spend every single hour of every single day in the world he loved with all his heart.

Harry was still smiling when he curled up to get some sleep that night with the knowledge that his life as Joe Bloggs, Archer of Aincrad was only just starting.

* * *

 _Saturday, November 09, 2019 11:21 AM  
Western Gate, Hajimari no Machi, First Floor_

Harry thoughtfully reentered Hajimari after spending the last four hours in the nearby Dungeon exploring the fields that surrounded the sprawling city. For the first time since he'd started playing SAO, he'd spent time in a Dungeon without once fighting a Monster. The reason for that was entirely due to the thousands of Players that were attempting to level up by fighting the low level Monsters that spawned in the Dungeon closest to the city. In fact, he'd even witnessed several arguments breaking out between Players when one Player poached another Player's Monster at the last minute.

The reason for that was due to the limited number of Monsters that would spawn per day in a given Dungeon and right now there were far too many Players hunting in the same Dungeon and there just weren't enough Monsters to go around.

Harry was unbothered by that revelation for the most part because he wasn't exactly interested in leveling up just to grow stronger. All he was interested in was seeing as much of his new home as he could before someone managed to clear the game and end their imprisonment; an accomplishment that would one day see Harry being permanently locked out of his chosen home. So, there was absolutely no reason at all for him to fight with the other Players over the Monsters in the Dungeons around Hajimari.

On the other hand, Harry would need to level up eventually if he ever hoped to see what was beyond the First Floor of Aincrad since he knew the Monsters grew stronger the further away from Hajimari one moved. He'd learned that the hard way when he'd been exploring the First Floor in the Beta Test. So, that meant that Harry would need to leave Hajimari sooner rather than later if he ever hoped to get strong enough to explore the rest of his home. Before he could actually leave though, there were a few things that he needed to do.

At the top of his list was to stock up on those supplies he would need as he traveled through the Dungeons; starting with Healing Potions and a wider assortment of Antidote and other Crystals. Things that he feared would be much harder to find in Hajimari now than they had been when he'd first logged on because the other Players would have rushed to buy them in the hopes that the Items would save their lives while they were in the game. Prices had potentially increased due to an increased demand for the Items as well; Harry _had_ learned about Supply and Demand in school.

The preteen not realizing that real world scenarios didn't exactly apply to the game and that the prices of all NPC sold Items were fixed in a matter of speaking; prices would vary from Floor to Floor or even Village to Village but otherwise stay the same.

Another Item that he would need to stock up on was Arrows. After he'd taken a shine to his Bow, Harry had learned very quickly during the Beta Test that you really couldn't have enough Arrows on hand when exploring the Dungeons. That was especially true when it came to the weakest and cheapest of the Arrows available in the game because it took more than a single Arrow to kill a Monster regardless of where it hit the creature. Extra Bowstrings would also be needed since the strings broke fairly easy and replacing the strings just before they broke actually extended the durability of the Bow.

He also needed to figure out what to do about the hunger he felt. Harry knew his Avatar didn't actually have a stomach but that didn't stop him from feeling like he had one and that it was currently screaming at him to feed it. He'd never needed to eat in the game before but he'd also never spent more than three and a half hours max in the game without a break. He hadn't needed to sleep in the game previously either and he'd already done that twice since he'd logged on back on the sixth. And he knew it was possible to grow exhausted within the game – he'd learned that firsthand.

After giving the matter some thought, Harry figured that the best place to start looking for both answers and supplies was the Central Market that sat just to the west of the Central Plaza.

Harry usually avoided the Central Market because that was where those Players that chose the Merchant Cast or the Trade Cast (those that took up professions such as Smithing or Tailoring) as their occupation (or Class) in the game (as opposed to say, the Warrior Cast – like Harry) usually set up a stall until they could afford to purchase an actual shop in which to sell their goods. He'd long made it a habit to buy from NPCs because there was less of a chance that an NPC would try to engage him in a conversation (unless they were Quest NPCs and he avoided those ones anyway).

As soon as he reached the Central Market, Harry began wandering through the stalls checking out the various Items that were on display. He also very carefully took note of which vendors were Players and which ones were NPCs since he wasn't really ready to deal with another human in the game. He eventually stumbled upon several stalls that were selling 'fresh' produce and baked goods and he imagined he could hear his stomach back in the real world start growling the moment he laid eyes on the 'food'.

After locating an NPC owned stall, Harry purchased a small selection of fruits and vegetables before he moved to a different vendor to purchase a variety of baked goods (most of them ones he'd never tried before). Once he'd completed both purchases, Harry opened his Menu to access his Inventory and withdrew a single orange to eat for a late breakfast. Peeling the orange was as easy as pulling on the little 'stem' that sat at the top of the fruit (where the fruit had once been attached to the tree it had grown on).

Harry then watched with more than a little amusement mixed with awe as the peel unraveled and shattered as it dropped away from the fruit before the wedges fanned out in a perfect circle to reveal that there was a small circle of peel still attached to the bottom of each wedge to hold them in place. Eating the fruit at that point simply required one to pluck the wedges free from the bit of peel. The nine year old had never before found something as simple as eating a piece of fruit so fascinating and it made him wonder if the other fruits had similar little tricks.

Once he'd finished eating the orange (without needing to deal with the typical stickiness associated with a real orange), Harry was surprised to feel full; as if he'd eaten a full meal. That knowledge let him know that the food he'd bought would last a bit longer than he'd originally thought it would since he wouldn't have to eat multiple Items just to take the edge off of the simulated hunger he felt. He would later learn that all Food Items carried 'expiration dates', though the length of time an Item was good for would vary from Item to Item with 'raw ingredients' lasting the longest.

After Harry had gotten over the strangeness of his first in-game meal, Harry wondered if there was a place that sold drinks and if they would also 'fill him up' since he hadn't actually felt thirst like he had felt hunger. A quick question posed to a random NPC he was passing on the street saw him being directed to the nearest Inn. Harry hesitated to enter at first (because a number of Players were likely inside) before he swallowed his nervousness and stepped through the door and headed to the bar to see what the NPC Bartender had for sale.

Ten minutes later, he left the Inn with four bottles of Chilled Milk and an equal amount of bottled Mulled Cider. He could have purchased an assortment of various alcohols too but he hadn't been interested in them even if the Bottled Mead had been cheaper than both the Milk and the Cider. He had, on the other hand, purchased half a dozen packets of Salted Peanuts and two bags of Roasted Chestnuts; both of which were familiar snacks that he'd only ever gotten to have on rare occasions when they'd been served at special events at school.

After he'd left the Inn, Harry headed for a stall selling Potions. The stall was manned by a Player but his prices looked lower than what they would cost in an NPC manned store. The guy selling the Potions looked honest and didn't attempt to engage his customers in small talk so Harry decided to chance buying from him since it would save him a bit of Cor in the long run. The purchase was made with even less fuss than it had taken to buy food from the NPCs and Harry walked away with a dozen Healing Potions.

Harry's next stop was then one of the NPC stores just outside of the Central Market where he could sell off the handful of Items he'd picked up on the sixth (when he'd been testing his Archery Skill) and buy more Arrows. The only Item he didn't sell off this time was the Meat he'd picked up; now that he knew the game would prompt him to eat, he figured he could save some money by making his own food. If he'd thought about it sooner, he probably could have eaten some of that meat earlier instead of buying food from the stalls.

Of course, the novelty of watching his orange peel itself and bloom like a flower had been worth the money spent. He also didn't think he could bring himself to eat raw meat even if it wasn't actual raw meat he'd be eating; so he'd have to figure out how to cook the Meat before he tried to eat the Meat he picked up in Monster Drops.

With that in mind, Harry went hunting through the various stores around town looking for one that sold kitchen supplies. He eventually found one on the east side of the city and after a short debate he bought a Soup Pot, a Cutting Board, a Ladle, and Small Camping Stove. He also, with great reluctance given his experiences in the game with swords and daggers, purchased a small Cooking Knife since he'd need it to 'cut' certain Food Items (like the various meats and vegetables). He also bought a single set of Camping Dishes and Utensils.

Of course, the fact that there was 'camping equipment' available in the game meant that it was possible to 'camp' out in the Dungeons and after checking how much money he had left, he purchased a Sleeping Bag, a Lantern (since they didn't sell torches), extra Battery Packs (for the Lantern and Camp Stove), a Camp Chair, a Bamboo Fishing Rod, and two packs of Fishing Line.

It might have been dumb of him to waste his money on things he really didn't _need_ but Harry had never been camping in real life and the concept appealed to him because it meant sleeping out under the stars instead of under the stairs. Sure, he'd done the same thing the last couple of nights in Hajimari but sleeping in a vacant yard wasn't the same as camping out in a Dungeon. He also liked the idea of being able to cover more ground in his explorations if he didn't have to constantly return to a city at night just to sleep.

By the time Harry had finished purchasing his camping equipment, night had fallen once more and he retreated back to the vacant building he'd been 'camping' outside of. He would then spend another two hours inspecting his new Items before he tested out the Stove in order to make certain it worked; cooking a chunk of Boar Meat from his Inventory. Only he ended up burning the soup he'd tried to make out of it because he lacked the experience. And while the act of making the attempt unlocked the Equipped Skill titled Cooking, he didn't have an open slot to make use of it yet.

So, after tossing out the charcoal soup and putting his cooking things away, Harry nibbled his way through something called Melon Bread before he pulled his brand spanking new Sleeping Bag out of his Inventory and went to bed. Before he fell asleep, Harry marveled over how warm he felt tucked inside of the game's Sleeping Bag. He hadn't even noticed that he'd been so cold the last couple of nights (winter was fast approaching in both real life and the game) until he was warmly snuggled inside of the Sleeping Bag and he felt in awe of how everything inside of the game felt so real.

The realistic cast to everything in the game made it easy for Harry to forget that he was inside of a game and as he slipped into Morpheus's arms, the only thought in his mind that he was home.

The mental reaffirmation that Aincrad was his home combined with Harry's mostly calm acceptance of being trapped inside of the server (minus his panic attack over being trapped in Central Plaza) and his belief that this was his chance for new life saw Harry's magic and the magic in the blood wards once again activating to carry out his will. This time, the combined magics began the process of slowly integrating Harry's magic (and therefore his soul) into the coding of the game using the improperly implanted and magically augmented NERDLES as a conduit.

It was a process that would take six weeks and one that Harry would never notice happening due to the gradual nature of the transference.

It started with a trickle of his magic being shunted into the server through the NerveGear where it promptly began fusing itself to the programming code that made up Harry's Avatar in the game in order to turn the Avatar into a proper vessel capable of containing Harry's soul. Once there was enough magic in his Avatar, his magic would spread to his Player Menu and from there to the Items he held in his Inventory or on his person for any length of time and to the Skills he'd unlocked. That would be especially true for the Equipment and Skills that he regularly used.

Harry wouldn't learn the full details of what had happened to him until years later; though he would notice quite a few of the changes that were made during the transference process even though he didn't recognize what they meant at the time.

* * *

 **Translations:** Japanese to English

Cor – the currency used in SAO  
Hajimari no Machi – Starting City or Town of Beginnings  
Koku Tetsu Kyuu – Black Iron Palace  
Seimei no Ishibumi – Monument of Life  
Sosei-sha no Ma – Room of Resurrection

 **Game Terminology:**

Aincrad – **A** n **Inc** arnating **Rad** ius (the name of the Castle that is SAO)  
ALF – **A** incrad **L** iberation **F** orce later called The Army by the in-game players  
Avatar – the term for a playable character that a player uses during game play  
Dungeon – an area within the game where players can attack or be attacked by Monsters (or other players)  
Experience Points – the points earned for each quest completed and each Monster killed  
GM – **G** ame **M** oderator – a group of players that were hired/selected to help the rest of the players by answering questions about the game, police those players breaking the rules, and collecting information about bugs found within the game so that they could be fixed  
HP – **H** it **P** oints: the number of Life Force/Life Points/Health Points a person has  
NPC – **N** on- **P** layer **C** haracter  
Player – an in-game character that is 'played' by a human  
Player Stats – A list of a player's in game statistics and skills  
Respawn – a reset of the player's (or Monster's) character after the character has 'died' within the game  
SAO – **S** word **A** rt **O** nline  
Skills – set abilities that can be performed by characters/players in a game  
Skill Points – Experience points that are applied towards mastery of an in game skill  
XP – short hand for E **x** perience **P** oints

 **Notes:**

Torch – British term for flashlight; so, Harry had hoped to buy a small flashlight in the game and not an actual wooden torch (though there are actual wooden torches in the game) and because they didn't have any, he bought a lamp instead.

* * *

 **AN:** _I apologize for the lateness of this post, I got sick, had some PC issues, got frustrated, and sulked for a few days. I'll be posting chapter six on Friday and chapter seven on Sunday to make up for missing two weekends in a row. I'll be answering PMs in between updates and AFTER I finish getting some stuff up on my patronizing page. Details and more information on why I was gone for so long will be on my author's page sometime tomorrow. Jenn  
_


	6. Life as a Vagabond Archer

**Disclaimer:** _Usually, I write out a very specific disclaimer explaining exactly what it is I don't own but once again I find myself not really interested in doing so for this story as it's very tedious. Suffice it to say I own nothing that was created by anyone else and I'm making no money whatsoever from the writing of this FanFiction._

 **Warnings:** _Mild to moderate violence, character death, foul language, alternate universe (i.e. kiss HP canon goodbye), angst, drama, starts pre-Hogwarts Era, original Quests, some minor religious themes, child neglect, references to large scale ostracization/shunning of a minor, and who knows what else._

 **AN1:** _This story is self-beta'd; so there may be occasional grammatical or spelling errors that crop up every now and then and for those I apologize in advance._

* * *

Chapter Six: Life as a Vagabond Archer

 _Sunday, November 10, 2019 5:32 AM  
Unoccupied Building Lot, Hajimari no Machi, First Floor_

Harry was up before first light the next morning; the growing anticipation he felt over resuming his explorations of the world he called home made it very hard to sleep. It took him less than five minutes to pack up his little camp and double check all of his supplies. Once he was certain he had everything, he armed himself with his Bow and Quiver as he headed for the nearest gate leading out into the Dungeons surrounding the city. He would be far from the only person leaving the city that morning but Harry ignored the other Players as he meandered in the direction of the nearest lake.

He wanted to try his hand at fishing before he moved deeper into the Dungeons.

By the time Harry reached the lake he'd been angling for, the sun had started rising and the world around him was painted with the light of a new day. The nine year old took the time to admire the light dancing across the surface of the water for a couple of minutes before he pulled his new Fishing Rod and Camp Chair out of his Inventory. He then settled himself as close to the water as he could get without getting his feet wet or having his chair sink into the ground at the edge of the lake and made his first attempt at Fishing.

For that first try, Harry just held the Bamboo Pole out over the water with both hands and carefully watched the pole as he waited for something to happen. When nothing happened for several minutes (there had been no activation 'glow' to indicate he was using the Item correctly), Harry pulled the pole back and eyed it for a moment before he set it on his lap and jabbed a finger at the Item to open the Item's Help Menu. A small Window containing the instructions on how to use the Item popped up an instant before his finger would have touched the Fishing Rod.

He then pulled his Japanese to English Dictionary out of his Inventory so that he could translate those words in the instructions that he wasn't familiar with. Once he thought he understood what he was supposed to do, he took a photo of the instructions (so he could review them and retranslate them later in case he needed to) and put the dictionary away before he closed out both Menus and made a second attempt to activate the Fishing Rod.

This time, instead of just holding the pole out over the water, he brought it up until it almost rested on his shoulder before he swung his arms forward like he was swinging a bat overhand. The Fishing Rod began to glow blue for a brief moment before a blue line with a dull gray hook flung itself forward to lightly splash in the water several feet out from shore. A Notification Window popped up in front of his face just two seconds later to inform him that he'd just unlocked the Fishing Skill but like the Cooking Skill he'd unlocked the previous night, he didn't have an open Skill Slot for it.

And he wasn't about to unequip any of his current Skills since he would need those as he explored the Dungeons. He could add a new Skill to his current Skill Set when he unlocked another Slot upon reaching level ten.

Harry would spend the rest of the morning just sitting next to the lake with the Fishing Rod in hand while his attention occasionally wandered to the landscape around him. During that time, he'd not get a single bite and he would also not gain any Skill Points towards the Fishing Skill due to the fact that the Skill was not currently equipped. In other words, he was simply wasting his time. Harry didn't mind or care though; he was perfectly content to just enjoy the moment. Besides, there was no place he had to be and there was really nothing else he had to do.

And most importantly, there was no one to tell him that he couldn't waste time doing what he was doing.

After an enjoyable morning spent lazing around, Harry put his Fishing Rod away before he pulled out an apple and a bottle of Chilled Milk from his Inventory for lunch. When he plucked the 'stem' off the top of the fruit, several glowing lines running from top to bottom appeared for a brief moment before the fruit bloomed into perfectly cut, seedless wedges that were ready to eat. The animation hadn't been as entertaining as the one for the orange had been but Harry still thought it had been a rather fascinating process to watch.

The Chilled Milk offered up no such entertainment though and after he removed the lid, he took a single sip to see what it tasted like; no different than he remembered milk tasting like in real life. Slightly saddened by that revelation, he drank the rest of it down in one go. As soon as the bottle was empty, it shattered into a thousand multi-colored crystals that rose up into the sky before they vanished; the color of the crystals differing slightly from the shards that appeared when Monsters and Players were shattered – those shards were always several shades of red while Item shards were shades of blues, greens, and purples.

Meal finished, Harry put his Camp Chair and Fishing Rod back into his Inventory and reequipped his Bow and Quiver before he picked a random direction and started walking. He'd barely traveled ten yards away from the lake when he stumbled into a small nest of Vicious Vipers (what he'd once called Petunias). The three snake-like Monsters attacked him all at once and Harry was hard pressed to bring his Bow into play before the vicious creatures could sink their fangs into him. His only consolation was the fact that the Vipers were easily put down with a single Arrow rather than the three it took to put down the Frenzy Boars (which had a higher Defense Stat due to their 'thicker' hide).

Still, he really didn't like fighting the stupid snakes.

The only good thing to come out of the group he just killed was the fact that he finally reached level two and that he'd gotten a better pair of Boots in the drop. He took the time to change out the Old Boots he'd been wearing for the Hiking Boots he'd just gotten. He could either sell the Old Boots the next time he was in Hajimari or he could toss them out without losing a lot of Cor if he needed the space. Harry then continued on his way while keeping a closer eye out for potential ambushes; earning Skill Points for his Detection Skill.

By the time the sun began to set that evening, Harry had walked miles even if he hadn't gone very far (he hadn't exactly been walking in a straight line, after all) and had gained enough Experience from fighting the Monsters that tried to attack him to reach level three. As soon as he'd noticed that the sun was setting, Harry used the fading light to find a Safe Zone to camp out in for the night; since it would be stupid to sleep out in the open Dungeon where any old Monster could find him. Once he found one that had been hidden in a small copse of tightly packed trees, he set up camp; a process that unlocked the Unarmed Skill called Camping.

As with the Cooking and Fishing Skills, Harry didn't have an empty slot to equip the new Skill but that didn't mean he wasn't excited about unlocking that particular skill.

For supper that night, Harry tried the Curry Bread and a bottle of Mulled Cider; both of which he thought were rather tasty, though he did find the Curry Bread a bit odd. The nine year old couldn't help but wonder how the people who'd made SAO had been able to make the virtual food taste the way real food tasted when it wasn't real and hadn't been eaten by his real mouth. He knew it had something to do with the way the NerveGear interacted with the brain but everyone liked different things and he wondered if that meant that everyone tasted something different when they ate the same Food Items.

After running his mind in circles trying to figure out the answer, Harry dropped that line of thinking and slipped into his Sleeping Bag before he turned his gaze up to the stars that he could see through the canopy of the trees. He hadn't been staring up at the star studded sky for long before he noticed the familiar constellation of the Plough (also known as Ursa Major or the Big Dipper) and raised his hand to trace the constellation in the sky. To his surprise, thin lines of blue light formed between the individual stars that made up the constellation and made it stand out more clearly in the night sky.

Immediately after all of the stars in the constellation had been linked together, Harry received a notification that he'd unlocked an Unarmed Skill called Stargazing. The translation of the Info Box on the new Skill said that the Skill gave a Player the ability to navigate through Dungeons at night using the stars as guides. Harry thought Stargazing sounded like a rather useful Skill to have and wished that he had enough empty Skill Slots so that he could equip all of the new Skills that he unlocked and unknowingly left an imprint of that wish on the magic that was slowly trickling into his Avatar.

Harry fell asleep not long after that with the stars following him to dance through his dreams.

* * *

 _Friday, November 15, 2019 3:02 PM  
Northern Gate, Hajimari no Machi, First Floor_

There was a spring in Harry's step as he headed north out of Hajimari in order to resume his leisurely Dungeon Crawl through the First Floor of Aincrad. He'd returned to the Town of Beginnings using a Teleportation Crystal earlier that afternoon to sell off a bunch of Items he didn't need in order to make room in his Inventory and so that he could restock his supplies. It'd been more than a little jarring for the nine year old to return to the crowded city after spending five days straight out in the Dungeons with only himself for company (for the most part) and he was glad to be leaving now.

Over the five days he'd spent outside of the city, Harry had unlocked a total of ten Skills (Fishing, Camping, Stargazing, Night Vision, Sprint, Whistling, Humming, Singing, Howl, and Animal Call). The oddest Skills that he'd just unlocked were the five sound-based skills he'd unlocked the previous night since he hadn't thought Skills like those existed in the game. It had been the Whistling Skill he'd unlocked first when he'd tried to whistle while he set up camp last night and it had prompted him to try making other sounds to see if they'd unlocks new Skills as well; they had.

Harry couldn't wait to see what other kinds of Skills he could unlock in the game. He'd even wished twice more over the past five days that he had more Skill Slots so that he could equip each and every new Skill he'd unlocked; his continued desire reaffirming the wish that had been imprinted in his magic that first night that he'd camped out in the Dungeon.

Aside from unlocking new Skills, Harry had also gained a total of eight levels (he'd leveled up twice each on the first two days of exploring and then once a day after that). He probably could have reached an even higher level if he'd chosen to focus on leveling up rather than wandering through the Dungeons. Doing so also meant that he would have had to return to the city sooner since it would have filled his Inventory up faster if he'd doubled or tripled his Monster Kill Count. Harry was in no rush to make his Avatar stronger though; he didn't see a need.

An attitude that would horrify most of his fellow Players if they knew about it due to how easily low-level Players could be killed by the various Monsters that populated the Dungeons; even the relatively weak ones on the First Floor. Not that Harry cared what other people thought; the Dursleys' treatment of him and the casual dismissal of his very existence by the neighbors, his teachers, and his peers had pretty much smothered any desire he might have once had to please others.

The only other notable thing that had happened to Harry while he had been out wandering was that he'd encountered two new kinds of Monsters that he'd not seen in the Beta Test; Dire Wolves and Vampire Squirrels. The reason why he'd not encountered them previously was due to the fact that both Monsters were only active at night and until he'd been locked in the game by Kayaba Akihiko, Harry had never set foot in Aincrad during the nighttime hours (the sun only just setting in the game when he'd logged out in the mornings). He didn't really like the Wolves all that much (they reminded him of Uncle Vernon's sister and her bulldogs) but the Squirrels really creeped him out.

Squirrels were supposed to be small and cute with a taste for nuts and seeds; not as tall as an adult and vicious with a thirst for 'blood'.

Thankfully, the blasted rodents were only active during the night (these vampires were allergic to sunlight according to the game lore he'd recently translated on them) and supposedly never left the forests so he'd only have to worry about them when he camped in a Forest Dungeon at night. He really hoped those things were the only vampires in the game but he suspected that wouldn't be the case given that there were a total of one hundred floors that made up Aincrad and the fact that all of those floors were each populated with different Monsters bar the handful of species that were found on multiple floors such as 'common' deer, rabbits, and horses.

So, odds were high that there'd be other types of Vampire Monsters on different floors.

Scary Squirrels aside, Harry had enjoyed his time out in the Dungeons and he was eager to get back out there.

Harry's thoughts turned away from the various Monsters he'd fought to date as he exited the northern gate of Hajimari and his eyes fell on the road that he knew from experience led to the next town over. He eyed the shadowy forest that swallowed the road not far from Hajimari's walls but didn't stop walking or alter his path to avoid the forest. Most of the Players who'd encountered the Vampire Squirrels would be a touch wary of entering their domain (let alone risk having to camp in one by entering said forest so close to sunset) but Harry was rather stubborn.

There was no way he was going to let some stupid (if creepy and overgrown) rodents keep him from continuing his explorations.

A lopsided grin formed on the face of Harry's adult Avatar a heartbeat later; he couldn't wait to see what other surprises the world that was his home held. He'd missed out on _so_ much during the Beta Test due to the limited number of hours and restricted time frames he'd been able to sneak onto the game. Sure, he'd nearly doubled how much time he'd spent in the game for the last two weeks of the Beta Test but he'd not once been logged on during mealtimes or the game's night hours and had therefore missed out on all those things that took place during the times he hadn't been able to log in.

Harry had no such limits or restrictions now though and it was that thought that gave Harry a reason to smile brightly as he stepped beneath the canopy of the forest. However, it was the memory of the creepy squirrel-like Monsters that had him keep his Bow at the ready.

Over the course of the next hour, Harry wandered back and forth across the road; the nine year old fearlessly slipping into the trees to check out anything that caught his interest rather than just following the road. He even chased after brightly colored butterflies, dashed after flickers of light, and hunted down flashes of color he'd seen out of the corner of his eye. The other players that were traveling on the road (few though they were at this time of day) shot him looks of disbelief as his laughter carried on the wind while he bounded from one side of the forest to the other.

He'd encounter more than one Monster during his little excursions (including a sleeping coven of bloodsucking rodents that he had exterminated with extreme prejudice) but their presence didn't deter him. He was far too enthralled with the world around him to care about the danger those same Monsters represented to his person. A few of the Players even tried to tell him off for behaving so childishly but Harry hadn't stuck around long enough to hear their lectures; much to the other Players' frustration.

Not that he would have understood said lectures even if he _had_ stuck around.

It was during one such off-road excursion that Harry stumbled across a group of six men fighting a bunch of plant-like Monsters (that Harry had once called Mouth Monsters before he'd learned their actual name was Little Nepenthes) in a smallish clearing. Harry wrinkled his nose in response to seeing those Monsters again; he'd been eaten (read killed) by those stupid things more than once during the Beta Test. Since the other Players had already claimed the Monsters, Harry moved to go around the clearing since he didn't want to make the other Players mad by poaching their Monsters.

He'd just barely turned away from the fight when he felt his feet yanked out from under him by one of the leafy-vine like appendages of the walking mouths when one of the creatures randomly spawned right behind him. The suddenness of the attack drew a startled yelp from him when the world spun as he was pulled upside down off of the ground. Harry didn't waste any further time cursing his luck as he twisted his body around so that he could bring his Bow into play in order to shoot the Monster in its open mouth before it could eat him; it didn't count as pouching if you were being attacked!

He activated a second Arrow just seconds after the first one had left the Bowstring. As Harry fired the second shot, he caught sight of the faint blue glow of an active Sword Skill a split second before a sword cut through the vine that had caught hold of him and continued on to slash into the Monster. The nine year old in an adult's Avatar dropped to the ground at the same time as his second Arrow hit home and shattered the Monster that had tried to make a meal of him. As the breath was knocked out of him, Harry caught sight of a vaguely familiar man bending down to offer him a hand up only for his eyes to be drawn to the Little Nepenthes that was suddenly looming over the man's back.

Ignoring the man's hand, Harry drew another arrow and nocked it in place as he whipped his Bow into position a third time and aimed over the man's shoulder to pick the thing off before it could catch the man unawares. Of course, the man had no idea what Harry was aiming at and the guy yelped in shock as the newly released Arrow nearly grazed the side of his head in a stream of blue light. The guy yelped a second time when the Little Nepenthes let out a roar of pain as Harry's Arrow struck true before he spun around with a curse and finished the Monster off with the blade in his hand.

" _Chikushou! Where do all of these damn things keep coming from?_ " the man demanded; though he spoke too fast for Harry to translate any of his words.

" _No clue, Klein, but watch out behind you! There's two more coming!_ " a stout man on the other side of the clearing called back in response to the man's demand.

Harry didn't need to know what either man had said to know what had them so frustrated; he could see the newest group of the damn Monsters for himself. Scrambling back up onto his feet, Harry shuffled backwards until his back was against a tree even as he fired Arrows at the closest of the Monsters. Getting clear shots with the other men present wasn't easy though since they were all over the place as they activated their assorted Sword Skills. The fact that the Little Nepenthes were so large, however, made it easier than it would have been if they had been fighting, say, a nest of Vicious Vipers.

Once the last of the Monsters had been shattered, Harry closed out all of the notifications he'd received regarding the kills he'd made before he slid down the tree he was propped up against with a heavy sigh. He was just getting ready to open his Menu to check his Arrow count (he _had_ used up quite a few during the fight) when a shadow suddenly fell over him. Harry froze with his hand poised in mid-air as he looked up to find the man that had cut him free earlier, the one he thought one of the other men had called Klein, standing over him a second time.

The moment their eyes met, Klein grinned at Harry as he announced, " _Oi, I remember you now! You're that guy that I'd accidentally bumped into on the edge of the Central Plaza after I'd parted with Kirito back on Opening Day._ " The man then grew sheepish as he reached up to rub at the back of his head before he half muttered, " _I'm still really sorry about that, by the way._ "

Harry blinked up at the man and tried not to show just how confused he was at the moment because he'd only understood about a third of whatever it was the guy had been saying. All he really understood was that the guy seemed to think he knew him and that he'd mentioned the Central Plaza in Hajimari no Machi for some reason. A frown curled Harry's mouth downwards as he thought about why the man might think he'd met him before when he finally recalled the guy that had knocked him over shortly after the barrier that had trapped him in Central Plaza had disappeared.

" _I'd wondered what had happened to you; you'd seemed rather shaken at the time – not that that really means anything, since a lot of us had been panicking back then. Still, I'm glad to see that you've survived this long,_ " Klein continued with another grin as he leaned down and grabbed hold of the hand Harry still had suspended in mid-air.

Harry found himself hauled up onto his feet a split second later before Klein shook his hand in greeting. Feeling rather uncomfortable with the contact, Harry pulled his hand free of the other guy's hold and nervously glanced about the clearing to see what had happened to the other five guys that had been fighting with the man and to make certain there weren't any more Little Nepenthes lurking around.

" _You know, I don't think we got a chance to introduce ourselves to each other that day; I'm Klein._ "

"Joe. Joe Bloggs," Harry tentatively offered in return as he recognized the introduction there at the end from the audio lessons he'd listened to during the weeks between the end of the Beta Test and the launch of the live game.

Klein grinned at him yet again before he stepped back and turned to the side as he gestured to the other men in the clearing and began listing their names off one by one, " _With me are Dale, Harry One, Issin, Kunimittz, and Dynamm. The rest of our friends are back in Horunka stocking up on supplies._ "

Harry nodded in response to each offered name, though he started in surprise when one of the shorter men with black hair had been introduced as 'Harry'. It was rather weird to meet another Harry in the game and for that other Harry to have the same color hair as him. That was where the similarities ended though; since the other Harry was taller, had dark brown eyes, and was no where near as skinny as the real Harry. He also wasn't wearing glasses but then again, neither was Harry (he hadn't seen any sold as Items in the game so far) so that didn't really mean anything.

Not that he wanted or needed to wear them here.

" _You're pretty good with that Bow,_ " the taller man with spiky black hair and a goatee that Harry thought had been called Kunimittz commented as he moved up to stand beside Klein. " _I'm pretty sure you're the first Player that I've seen using a projectile weapon instead of a melee weapon in a close quarters fight like that. Wouldn't it have been better to use your sword instead?_ "

Harry just shrugged and offered the man a sheepish smile since he had no clue what he'd just been asked aside from the fact that it had something to do with 'swords'; a weapon Harry wanted nothing to do with. Four of the men laughed while the other two shook their heads and rolled their eyes in response to Harry's silent reply. Harry shifted on his feet for a moment before he noticed how dark the forest had grown. Wrinkling his nose in annoyance over the time he'd lost during the fight, Harry glanced upwards to take note of the first few stars blinking into existence; the sun had nearly set.

He then grabbed his Bow, which he'd left sitting on the ground when Klein had hauled him to his feet, and gave Klein an awkward salute before he turned his back on the group and headed back into the forest. He didn't take more than a single step before he felt himself being grabbed by the shoulder and he glanced back to find Klein holding him. Confused over why the other man had held him back, Harry shrugged himself free before he half turned back to face the man in order to see what it was he wanted.

" _Buddy, you're going the wrong way; the road between Hajimari and Horunka is back that way,_ " Klein explained as he jerked his thumb towards the direction where Harry knew the road sat.

"I'm going that way," Harry automatically replied in English as he, in turn, gestured back in the direction he'd been heading in when he'd first stumbled into the clearing and gotten caught up in the attack.

"What? Why…?" Klein asked him in confusion as the man unconsciously switched languages in response to Harry's habitual use of English.

"I haven't explored that part of the forest yet."

"Aren't you worried about being ambushed by Vampire Squirrels once the sun sets?"

"Nope, I'll spend the night in a Safe Zone."

"Wouldn't it be safer just to head back into town for the night?"

Harry shook his head no in response to that question before he added, "I like camping."

"Huh, weird; I didn't know you could camp in the Dungeons. Aren't you worried about Monsters finding you while you sleep though?"

"No, the Monsters can't enter the Safe Zones."

"Well, I suppose that's true enough," Klein grudgingly agreed before he glanced around as if looking for someone before he asked, "So, where's the rest of your Party? Did you get separated from your friends?"

Harry awkwardly shrugged his shoulders and shook his head no again; he didn't have any friends. Not in the game and certainly not back in the real world. He had himself mostly convinced that he preferred it that way too.

Klein frowned at him before he tensely asked, "They didn't desert you did they?"

"No, I'm traveling alone," Harry informed him in the hopes that it would stop him from asking any more uncomfortable questions.

"In that case; would you like to join our Party? It's safer to travel in groups since it's harder for large groups of Monsters to ambush large groups of Players and it'd be nice to have another Ranged Fighter in our group."

"No thanks."

"Well, if you don't want to join our Party, how about you just stick with us until we get to Horunka?"

"I was already in town once today," Harry answered with a shake of his head as he backed away from Klein so that the man couldn't grab him a third time.

Harry exited the clearing just seconds later and he broke out into a fast jog in order to get as far away from the men in the clearing as he could in case one of them gave chase. If he had bothered to look back, he would have seen Klein dash into trees after him in an attempt to follow him only for the man to quickly lose sight of him amongst the closely grown trees of the forest. He kept on running for a good twenty minutes just in case someone had followed him before he slowed down to a fast walk due to how dark the forest had grown.

As he continued moving through the trees, Harry kept a careful watch for Monsters and a place to camp for the night and it wasn't long before he put his encounter with the group of men out of his mind.

* * *

 _Tuesday, November 26, 2019 6:02 AM  
Safe Zone, Unnamed Dungeon, First Floor_

Harry frowned to himself as he flipped the large Squirrel Steak he was currently cooking on his Camp Stove over. He'd been troubled ever since he'd reached level ten exactly ten days ago. It wasn't the fact that he'd leveled up that bothered him though (he'd done enough of that in both the Beta Test and the Live Version that he rarely ever thought about his current level). No, it was the fact that he'd noticed there were a few things… off, for lack of a better word. And he didn't know if the things he'd noticed were new features added to the Live Version or if his Avatar had been caught in a glitch.

He'd first noticed the problem immediately after he'd been bumped up to level ten and he'd unlocked a total of three Skill Slots instead of the one he'd originally expected to gain; two Equipped Skill Slots and one Unarmed Skill Slot. He'd actually been really excited about that because it meant that he could equip more Skills but when he'd gone to fill his new Skill Slots, he'd discovered another anomaly; his Unequipped Skills had gained more than a few Skill Points even through they were not supposed to when they were not set in a Skill Slot.

A little experimentation on his part had also revealed that switching out the various Skills didn't drop their Skill Points back down to zero like it was supposed to. He still couldn't properly use the Skills that were not assigned to a Skill Slot but the fact that 'attempting' to use them earned him Skill Points for those Skills bothered him. It was almost as if he was using a Cheat Code but he knew he wasn't. Or at least, it wasn't a Cheat Code that he'd applied to his character. And the fact that he didn't know how he'd managed to unlock such a Cheat Code really bothered him.

He didn't think the other Players would be happy if they knew he'd be able to master all of his Skills and then keep the Experience he'd gained in all of the Skills that he'd unlocked even when he swapped the Skills in and out of his open Skill Slots. Just like he was pretty sure they'd be mad if they learned about him keeping his Avatar's created appearance instead of his Avatar being changed to reflect his true age and appearance.

If he ignored the potential downsides of having access to the glitches, upgrades, or auto cheats, Harry thought getting extra Skill Slots each time he hit one of the mile-stone levels (which occurred every ten levels or every twenty levels in the case of the Unarmed Skill Slots) was a good thing. After all, gaining extra Slots early meant that he could put more of his unlocked Skills into use at a time. Up until he'd reached level ten, he'd been conflicted about which Skill he'd equip when he'd unlocked the next Skill Slot and with the extra Slots, he'd been able to equip what he believed were the three most useful Skills that he'd unlocked to date; Cooking, Fishing, and Camping.

If those two things were the only anomalies that he'd discovered, Harry probably wouldn't have been quite so worried but that wasn't the case. Ever since he'd reached level ten, a different Item in his Inventory had started to act weird with each subsequent level gained. The first Item to go wonky had been his Healing Potions. He'd originally had about fifteen of the things in his Inventory but now he only had one (the other fourteen had vanished completely) and each time he withdrew that Potion, he'd end up with one in his hand and one _still_ in his Inventory.

It was like the game was replicating the Potion instead of letting him take it out of his Inventory.

If that wasn't worrisome enough there was also the fact that he'd used more than fifteen Healing Potions since he'd discovered that little issue and he _still_ had a single Healing Potion in his Inventory. And, no, he hadn't purchased any more when he'd been in town the other day. The same glitch had also infected the three types of Antidote Crystals (one to cure Poisoning, one to cure Paralysis, and one to cure Curses – the latter needed to remove the HP Draining Curse that inflicted those who were bitten by the Vampire Squirrels) that he'd had in his Inventory with his next three level ups.

Harry was worried what would happen if the glitch infected everything that was in his Inventory since Inventory Space was limited and if he could never get rid of any Items, then he'd never be able to pick up new Items once his Inventory was full because he'd never have any room for them. That wouldn't be so bad for things like Potions and Crystals but he'd hate to be stuck carrying a bunch of swords he couldn't use. He also didn't know how such a glitch would affect those Items that had a limited shelf life like the Food Items that he bought or the Meats he got in Monster Drops.

The last glitch that he'd noticed was the fact that his HP hadn't actually gone up like it was supposed to when he gained another level. And while he could find something redeeming in the other glitches, he couldn't think of anything good that could come out of him forever being stuck with an HP of one thousand, nine hundred twenty-five when there were likely to be strong Monsters in the game that could deal out two thousand points of damage in a single attack; a terrifying concept when one considers that a death in Aincrad now meant dying in real life thanks to Kayaba's trickery.

If this had still been the Beta Test and Harry had felt confident enough to use the Help Menu, Harry could have called a GM to get his character reset in order to clear the glitches but there were no GMs in the game any more and even if there had been a GM to contact, he wouldn't have felt comfortable enough to do so.

So, even though he wasn't panicking over the changes, he was a bit worried about them because he didn't know what was causing them or when they would stop. Unhindered by Harry's concerns since he wasn't feeling an extreme emotion or making a wish, his magic continued to integrate itself into his Avatar and through his Avatar, into the coding that was his Player's Menu. The only reason his magic didn't spread any further than his Avatar and Menu was due to the fact that the coding in his Avatar was self-contained and the Menu coding was tied to his Avatar.

Though, it would be possible for his magic to interact with external coding and programs through Harry's interactions with different facets of the game once the integration process was complete; it just wouldn't fully leave the coding that was Harry's Avatar since it was anchoring itself and his soul to said Avatar.

A Window popping up in front of Harry to let him know that his Squirrel Steak was done cooking pulled Harry out of his thoughts and he refocused his attention on his rather unconventional breakfast. He'd been somewhat leery of cooking the Meat he'd gotten from the Vampire Squirrels at first but figured he would at least try it once before he decided whether or not he'd sell that Meat off the next time he visited Hajimari (much as he'd tried the Meat that he'd obtained from the Frenzy Boars). Harry shut off the stove once he'd pulled his steak out of the pan he'd been using to cook it.

He then bravely cut himself a bite of steak and stuck it in his mouth. As he chewed the piece he'd put in his mouth, Harry tried to decide whether or not it he liked the taste. After another two bites, he decided it wasn't bad and that it tasted a bit like pork but was gamey like lamb. He'd probably eat it again if he had any on hand but he wouldn't go out of his way to get more. He'd also probably sell what he had off the first chance he got to make room for the Food Items that he liked the best; like the Sausage Rolls he'd bought in Horunka two days ago.

Once he finished his meal, Harry began cleaning and packing up his camp so that he could get back to exploring. He then chose a direction that wouldn't lead him back over ground that he'd already covered and began walking. He wouldn't go too far before he ran into a small herd of Frenzy Boars; these ones several levels higher, and therefore stronger, than the ones that occupied the Dungeons that surrounded Hajimari. Harry eyed the familiar Monsters for several minutes before he shifted his course to take him around the bulk of the herd.

A few of the solitary Boars would take exception to his presence and attack him but for the most part the Monsters pretty much ignored him. Those that did attack would be shattered with the usual trio of Arrows; their higher levels negating any advantage his higher level and slightly better quality Arrows would have given him on the lower level Boars. After leaving the herd of Frenzy Boars behind, Harry would run into a small flock of Plains Vultures that harried him for nearly an hour until he'd managed to pick the last bird in the flock off.

Two hours after dealing with the flock of Vultures, Harry discovered another new Monster he hadn't encountered in the Beta Test; Stinging Salamanders. The bright blue and red amphibians were about the size of a large dog with what looked like a scorpion's stinger in place of a tail, webbed feet that ended in sharp claws, and jaws full of needle-sharp teeth. The beasts lived under rocks in the river that cut through the eastern half of the First Floor and would spring out at passing Players or Monsters when a shadow passed over them.

The worst part about the new Monster, in Harry's mind, was that its small size did not equate to an easy kill. It took him sixteen Arrows (not counting the eight misses) to finish off the thing. He'd also managed to get himself poisoned when the Salamander had tagged him in the thigh with its stupid stinger according to the flashing purple skull beside his HP Bar and the System Warning blaring in his ear. As soon as it shattered, Harry's Avatar glowed a faint gold color for a brief moment to indicate that he'd just reached level fifteen and when the glow cut off, a pair of system Notification Windows popped to announce the successful kill and the level up.

Harry closed them both out without bothering to read or translate them; he'd given up translating all of the Windows that popped up after an encounter with a Monster when he realized that they all mostly just said the same thing. Immediately afterwards, he opened up his Menu to check his new Stats and scowled at the screen when he saw that his HP still hadn't changed. A quick check through his Inventory had his virtual stomach 'twisting' up in knots when he saw that his small stock of Transport Crystals (he'd only had three on hand) had been the next Inventory Item infected by the glitch.

He was about to close his Menu at that point when he noticed the Skills Menu (a Sub-Menu of the Inventory/Equipment Menu) was flashing; an indication that a change had been made to the Sub-Menu. Harry eyed the flashing button for a few minutes before he reluctantly tapped on it to open the Sub-Menu up in order to find out what had changed. The nine year old wasn't sure quite what to think when he saw that he'd just unlocked another two Skill Slots for Equipped Skills; never mind that those Skill Slots were only supposed to be unlocked every ten levels.

Instead of thinking too deeply about the glitch, Harry went ahead and equipped two more Skills; Longbow and Night Vision before he closed out the Menu without bothering to check for any other changes. He didn't want to know what else had been messed up by the virus that had infected his Menu.

Once his Menu winked out of sight, Harry resumed walking as he angled his path slightly away from the river; he would prefer to avoid being ambushed by a second Stinging Salamander. He'd barely taken two steps before the flashing icon beside his HP Bar and the annoying system warning reminded him that he hadn't cured his Poison Status from the Salamander's stinger. Letting out a huff of impatience, Harry reopened his Menu to grab a green Antidote Crystal and promptly used it on himself.

The flashing purple skull and crossbones icon that was the Poison Symbol and the blaring System Alarm in his ear both disappeared just a few seconds after the Antidote Crystal shattered with use.

Harry continued on his way immediately after curing himself.

* * *

 **Translations:** Japanese to English

Chikushou – damn/damn it  
Oi – hey

 **Game Terminology:**

Aincrad – **A** n **Inc** arnating **Rad** ius (the name of the Castle that is SAO)  
Avatar – the term for a playable character that a player uses during game play  
Dungeon – an area within the game where players can attack or be attacked by Monsters (or other players)  
Experience Points – the points earned for each quest completed and each Monster killed  
GM – **G** ame **M** oderator – a group of players that were hired/selected to help the rest of the players by answering questions about the game, police those players breaking the rules, and collecting information about bugs found within the game so that they could be fixed  
HP – **H** it **P** oints: the number of Life Force/Life Points/Health Points a person has  
Melee Fighter – a warrior class character that fights up close (usually with hand to hand combat or a hand-held weapon designed for slashing, stabbing, or bashing)  
Party – a group of two or more individuals that work together for a period of time or a set task  
Player – an in-game character that is 'played' by a human  
Player Stats – A list of a player's in game statistics and skills  
Ranged Fighter – a warrior class character that fights from a distance  
Skills – set abilities that can be performed by characters/players in a game  
Skill Points – Experience points that are applied towards mastery of an in game skill  
XP – E **x** perience **P** oints

 **Notes:**

Level Progression – before anyone tells me that Harry shouldn't have been able to level up so quickly when it took Kirito until Dec 15th to reach level fifteen in canon, here are a few things that you need to keep in mind:

1) While Harry isn't actively looking to level up (unlike Kirito), I see him as encountering the same number of Monsters in a week as Kirito due to the fact that Harry spends so little time in town and constantly wanders off the beaten path. And there are times when canon Kirito will spend DAYS at a time in town.

2) As I'd mentioned in the story a chapter or two ago, the fact that Harry had installed the Full Version of SAO overtop of the Beta Version without first uninstalling the Beta Version created software conflicts that were translated into glitches within the game and one of them was the one that multiplied the amount of XP he gained by 1.5. Harry just never noticed that because it isn't important to him.

And 3) Instead of calculating the point value for each Monster killed and the required number of points for each level increase, I estimated the number of days/hours it would take for Harry to earn the necessary XP to reach the next level and then had those level ups increase in set increments.

Harry leveled up twice each in the first two days, then for the next five days he leveled up once per day. On reaching level 10, that would then increase to a level up every other day and starting at level 15, each level will take one more day to earn than the previous level; so Harry's rapid level gain will now start to slow. In fact, while it only took him 3 wks to reach level 15, it will take him another 3 wks to reach level 20. So even though Harry is currently at a higher level than a canon Kirito, Kirito will soon pass Harry by and leave him in the dust.

(That will happen before the end of January in-story as a matter of fact; despite the software conflict giving Harry extra XP with each kill).

* * *

Harry's Game Data/Stats (3Wks Post Launch):

 **Category:** Human Player  
 **Caste:** Warrior  
 **Class:** Ranged Fighter  
 **Type** : Bowman  
 **Level:** 15  
 **HP:** 1925/1925  
 **Cor:** 22,957  
 **Attributes:** DEF [13], ATK [15], STR [05], AGI [10], STM [05], & LCK [10]  
 **Unspent Stat Points:** [82] (20 extra points carried over from Beta Test)

 **Main Equipment:**

Basic Longbow – Flimsy Longbow accurate up to 50 yards: +2 ATK  
Stone-Tipped Arrows – Low quality Arrows; pine shafts w/ flint Arrowheads and fletched with duck feathers +3 ATK  
Bamboo Rod – a simple bamboo pole with a basic hook tied to it with a fishing line  
Leather Boots – Sturdy boots that make noise: +2 DEF  
Leather Gloves – Sturdy gloves that protect a player's hands: +1 DEF  
Leather Clothes – Sturdy clothes that protect a player's body: +5 DEF

 **Equipped Skills:** 12 Slots (2 carried over from Beta Test & 4 extra from 'glitch')  
(Basic 1-250 pts, Advanced 251-500 pts, Proficient 501-750 pts, Expert 751-999 pts, & Master 1000 pts)

Archery – 0498  
Cooking – 0123  
Detection – 0460  
Fishing – 0119  
Hiding – 0402  
Hunting – 0335  
Listening – 0246  
Longbow – 0116  
Night Vision – 0074  
Searching – 0461  
Sneak – 0503  
Tracking – 0446

 **Unarmed Skills:** 04 (1 carried over from Beta Test & 1 extra from 'glitch')

Camping – 0115  
Escape – 0235  
Navigation – 0308  
Scouting – 0339

 **List of Unequipped Skills Unlocked:**

Animal Call – 0052  
Climbing – 0063  
Dead Shot – 0168  
Howl – 0032  
Humming – 0086  
Short Bow – 0362  
Singing – 0029  
Sprint – 0152  
Stargazing – 0423  
War Cry – 0012  
Whistling – 0048

* * *

 **AN:** _Here's the next chapter as promised… chapter seven will then be up on Sunday, the fourth, as promised; at which time we'll be going back to the one chapter per week deal that I'd promised. Meaning chapter eight is scheduled for posting on 3-11-08. ~ Jenn  
_


	7. System Integration Complete

**Disclaimer:** _Usually, I write out a very specific disclaimer explaining exactly what it is I don't own but once again I find myself not really interested in doing so for this story as it's very tedious. Suffice it to say I own nothing that was created by anyone else and I'm making no money whatsoever from the writing of this FanFiction._

 **Warnings:** _Mild to moderate violence, **character death** , foul language, alternate universe (i.e. kiss HP canon goodbye), angst, drama, starts pre-Hogwarts Era, original Quests, some minor religious themes, child neglect, references to large scale ostracization/shunning of a minor, and who knows what else. _

**AN1:** _This story is self-beta'd; so there may be occasional grammatical or spelling errors that crop up every now and then and for those I apologize in advance._

* * *

Chapter Seven: System Integration Complete

 _Saturday, December 21, 2019 4:44 PM  
Unnamed Lake, Unnamed Dungeon, First Floor_

November seamlessly transitioned into December and Harry took little note of the passing time as he continued his exploration of the First Floor; not even the fast approaching winter holidays registered in the nine year old's mind.

As an unwanted interloper in the Dursley household, Harry had never been allowed to join in any holiday celebrations and he'd learned to 'tune' out holiday type activities that most other people took for granted to spare himself the pain and loneliness of forever being left out. So, the festive greetings that were exchanged by Players and NPCs alike, the wide variety of yuletide themed Items, and the town-wide holiday decorations never registered in his mind. He had even purchased a few candy canes, fruit cakes, and eggnog without realizing their significance; they were just rare treats that he recalled being offered at school around winter break every year.

No, Harry didn't register the holiday atmosphere.

He simply carried on with his explorations in an attempt to see those places he'd not had the time to check out before the Beta Test had been shut down. And find them he had. He'd climbed a mountain that had bear and goat-like Monsters, he'd stumbled on a lake filled with flying-fish Monsters, and he'd briefly gotten lost in a deep canyon filled with these giant dandelion-ish Monsters whose airborne seeds latched onto Players and attempted to take root on them in order to grow; smothering and draining them of their life. He'd also seen (and hunted) harmless ducks, rabbits, and prairie dogs.

Harry had been awed by the scenery and annoyed by a few of the Monsters; the dandelion-things and flying-fish things in particular – the former because killing the parent always unleashed a torrent of seeds and the flying-fishes because they always attacked in large swarms. The Fish Meat he'd gotten from the flying-fish had been rather tasty though and the flower Monsters had dropped an Uncommon Item that was used to create Healing Potions and was therefore highly sought after by the other Players – though he'd only sold his to NPC run shops.

A few other things that Harry hadn't paid much attention to was the latest news from the 'front line' and the most recent death count; the former of which was up on the Third Floor and expected to advance to the Fourth Floor any day now and the latter of which was now over two thousand. The reason for Harry's blasé attitude regarding those two subjects boiled down to two things; Harry didn't care about 'winning' the game because he didn't want to leave his home and he didn't like to think about the place he considered his home killing a bunch of people he didn't know.

Harry was also young enough and still innocent enough to be easily distracted by all of the wonders around him rather than let himself get stuck on the horrors that lurked in the shadows beneath those same wonders.

All children were born with rose-tinted glasses covering their eyes and while Harry's glasses had been tarnished and slightly mangled by the years that he'd lived with his relatives, they hadn't been broken or lost. In fact, wandering around in Aincrad's Dungeons had actually seen his rose-tinted glasses being cleaned, repaired, and polished until they were practically brand new again – though they were far from perfect since one's innocence can't be put back together once it has been broken, only smoothed polished so that the edges weren't so rough and sharp.

Still, the result of that polishing was that Harry only really saw the beauty and the good in the virtual world around him.

Additionally, the freedom he'd found in the artificial world was a balm to his soul and he reveled in every single second of it. That freedom had also fueled his stubborn side as the longer he was free to do as he liked, the stronger his dislike for being told what to do grew. He just hadn't realized it yet since he hadn't yet encountered someone who tried to tell him what to do; well, not that he'd understood, at least. There had been plenty of other Players that had tried to tell him he was being foolish for wandering alone in the Dungeons but he hadn't really bothered to listen to them.

On top of that, the fact that he'd been spending less and less time around other Players meant that he grew less and less comfortable entering the scattered towns on the First Floor for supplies. That was especially true of Hajimari where the largest concentration of Players could still be found. The growing discomfort in crowds meant that Harry avoided going into town unless he absolutely had to buy supplies, sell Items, or replace his equipment and when he was in town, he'd spend as little time there as possible; another factor that prevented him from noticing the fast approaching holiday.

Not even inclement weather could chase Harry out of the Dungeons; as evidenced by the fact that he was currently wrapped up in his Sleeping Bag and seated on his Camp Chair on the edge of a deep lake fed by a wide series of low waterfalls as he patiently waited for a fish to bite while a blizzard cut the visibility down to zero and attempted to bury him in snow.

Despite the freezing cold temperatures around him, Harry was as snug as a bug in a rug inside of his Sleeping Bag. Not even the occasional clumps of moist snow that managed to slip inside of the Sleeping Bag through the gaps where his hands and head were poking out could make a dent in the steady heat that suffused his body while he was inside of the bag. The raging snow storm also didn't affect the catch rate of fish and he'd already caught six assorted fish, two eels, and one old boot that he'd immediately thrown away.

A particularly large clump of snow slipped down the back of Harry's neck at the same exact instant that he felt the pole in his hands dip under the weight of the fish that had just swallowed his hook. The feel of the icy mush sliding down his neck turned his shout of joy into a something of a squeal as he jumped to his feet and hauled back on the Fishing Rod in order to yank the fish out of the water. There was a loud splash as the resistance Harry felt disappeared the moment the fish was pulled free of the water and Harry eagerly reached forward to claim his prize.

Only to let out a yelp of shock when he discovered that he'd just caught a Stinging Salamander instead of the fish that he'd expected. He hadn't even known that it was possible to catch Monsters while Fishing! Discarding the now useless Fishing Rod (it wouldn't help him kill the Monster!), Harry scrambled for his Bow as the Salamander dropped back into the water with an even louder splash. He didn't believe for one second that the thing would leave him alone after he'd caught it though and he'd barely gotten an Arrow ready when the thing launched itself out of the water practically right in front of Harry's face.

His poor Sleeping Bag would fall victim to the Salamander's teeth during that first attack and Harry nearly missed his first two shots because the flurry of crystals from his destroyed Item had blocked his vision. The only reason that he'd still managed to hit the annoying Monster at the time was because it was practically right on top of him. The amphibious beast's second attack would see his Camp Chair being sacrificed when Harry had scrambled backwards in order to avoid its stinger and to put some distance between them so he could fire another five Arrows.

All five Arrows would find their mark and drop the Salamander's HP down to the halfway mark but didn't stop the Monster as it shot forward and lashed out at him with its stinger at the same time as it tried to bite his foot off and Harry almost wished he had a sword so he could cut the annoying stinger off of the Salamander's body. The lack of a melee weapon didn't hinder Harry's ability to fight back though and the next three Arrows would strike the Monster in the face one right after the other.

It would take yet another four Arrows to kill the Stinging Salamander and Harry felt more than a little relieved as he watched the Monster shatter in a shower of red crystals that disappeared into the snowstorm that still raged on around him. Like the first time he'd defeated one of the amphibious creatures, Harry's Avatar glowed gold to indicate that he'd gained another level; bringing him up to level twenty. Knowing the level up will have unlocked more Skill Slots, due to the level number being a factor of ten, Harry closed out the Notification Windows so that he could open his Menu.

Before he was able to bring up his Player Menu though, another Notification popped up in front of Harry's face and caught the nine year old off guard. The most shocking thing about the new Window was the fact that the Notification that appeared on it had been written in English for the first time ever even if the message on the thing confused the heck out of him and he stared at it for nearly five full minutes as he tried to comprehend what the words meant.

 _System Integration Complete._

System integration? What system integration? What did that even mean?

Still confused, Harry reached out to close the Window. The second the strange message had disappeared, a loud klaxon began blaring practically in Harry's ear and he let out a frightened yelp even as he clapped his hands over his ears in an attempt to block out the headache inducing sound that had begun bleating in his ear without warning. His eyes widened in fear a split second later as a flattened red hexagon outlined in maroon flared into existence right in front of his face with the words 'Unstable Element' in English written upon it while the klaxon continued to sound off all around him.

If that wasn't bad enough, a bunch of system warning messages began propagating into existence all around Harry until he was completely surrounded by a wall made up of flashing red hexagons.

And then the world around Harry shattered as his Avatar unexpectedly burst into crystals for no apparent reason.

Harry's final cry of horror and denial would be swallowed by the loud blaring of the warning klaxon.

In the real world, just mere seconds before his Avatar shattered inside the game, Harry's body died due to a combination of six weeks worth of neglect, extreme magical exhaustion, and the distinct lack of a soul _before_ the NerveGear could kill him as it had been programmed to do; the device deactivating the moment his brain 'died'. The last remnants of the Blood Wards surrounding Harry's dead body surged forward to preserve it before the magic fueling the wards dissipated now that the entire reason for their existence, to protect Harry, no longer existed.

Harry's passing, hidden as it was behind the sealed cupboard under the stairs, would go unnoticed and unmourned by the other three residents in the house – Dudley's memories of Harry had been wiped the moment that he'd returned home for the winter break. It would be another year and a half years before the wizarding world would learn of their child savior's death and the public would riot in the streets when the details of how he died were leaked to the press.

Five long seconds after his Avatar had shattered without warning, the world reformed around Harry and he found his nine year old self standing in a familiar room that was unfamiliar to him. It looked like the room he used to appear in each time he had been killed in the Beta Version of SAO but instead of being a featureless black room, this room was a featureless white room that looked to have been made up of clouds. There was even a flat purple hexagon with the words 'You're Dead' hanging in the air in front of him; though the fact that the words were in English kind of confused him.

" **You should not be here, child; it is not yet your time to die,** " a creaky, old voice stated from behind Harry and the nine year old spun around to find three very old women looming over him; the one on the right being the one that had spoken. " **Your Destiny is yet unfulfilled.** "

"I… I don't know what you're talking about. I don't even know who you are," Harry stated in such a way that it sound more like a demand for an explanation and an introduction instead of simple statements as he tried not to cower away from the strange women; the nine year old focused more on the fact that these strangers actually saw him and less on the words that the one had spoken.

" **We have been known by many names throughout ages past; the Greeks called us Moirai, to the Romans we were Parcae, and the Norsemen referred to us as the Norns,** " the woman on the left answered in a voice that was also very hoarse with age.

" **We are, simply put, the Fates,** " the woman in the middle added in an equally ancient voice as she took a step closer to Harry. " **And it is our Divine Duty to ensure that every man, woman, and child lives out the life they were born to live before the Thread that is their Life is cut from the future weavings of the Tapestry of the World.** "

" **And you, child, should not be here for your Thread of Life yet extends far into the future,** " the woman on the right finished as she held up a brilliant emerald thread that snaked off into the distance.

" **And yet here you are,** " all three women stated in unison and Harry cringed in response to the annoyance that he could hear in their ancient voices.

"I'm sorry! It was an accident!" Harry cried in the hopes that the women wouldn't punish him too harshly.

The three women dispassionately stared at him before they seemingly dismissed him as they turned to one another and began arguing amongst themselves. The fact that all three women looked identical coupled with the way he could no longer really see their faces made it hard for him to know which woman it was that was speaking. He was also more than a little irritated with the way they were now ignoring him because it sharply reminded him of his relatives and of those people that had overlooked and ignored him all the time in Little Whinging.

" **His Destiny is waiting for him; we must send him back.** "

" **He is dead; his soul should be sent on to the Underworld.** "

" **His Thread is unbroken but his body is dead; his soul is barred from the Underworld so long as his Thread of Life remains intact and his body is no longer capable of housing his soul.** "

" **So cut his Thread and send him onwards! It would not be the first time a human's life has been cut short before they could fulfill their Destiny.** "

" **No! We must send him back to the Overworld! The Thread of his Life is far too tangled in the World's Tapestry to rip him free and assign his Destiny to another!** "

" **His body can not hold his soul! The enchantments his foolish mother cast upon him before her Thread was cut have rendered it unusable when the blasted enchantments froze the child's body in time!** "

" **So give him a new body and tie its Thread of Life to his and be done with it!** "

" **We are wasting time, sisters; the longer the child's soul remains here Between Worlds, the greater the chances are that the World's Tapestry will start to unravel. We should send him to the Underworld and bind his Thread to the Thread of another.** "

" **But what do we do with him? The two of you can not agree on a single course of action and there is no third option that we can use as a compromise!** " one of the women declared in a tone that was full of frustration.

" **Then let the child choose,** " the other two women announced together.

Harry swallowed thickly when the three women immediately turned back to him after that declaration. He didn't quite understand what was happening but he knew he didn't like it because he just knew that they were trying to force him to do what they wanted him to do. And the last thing he wanted was for someone to start telling him what to do again!

" **You have a choice, child; return to your body in the Overworld to fulfill the Destiny that was assigned to you the day you were born or cut all ties to the Overworld and step foot in the Underworld,** " the woman in the middle stated in a solemn tone and Harry felt a kind of horrified anger well up in his gut as he realized that the women were trying to send him back to the Dursleys (since that was where his body was in the real world) or force him to go to Hell (they had mentioned sending him to some place called the Underworld and Hell was below Heaven, right?).

"Neither! The only place I'm going is home!" Harry declared fiercely as he immediately rebelled against the idea of allowing these strangers to tell him what to do or where to go and he had all of two seconds to take in the shocked looks on the old women's faces before the world around him shattered once again.

When the world next reformed around him this time, Harry found himself back in a familiar black room with a familiar purple hexagon announcing his recent death (the words clearly written in familiar romaji) and once more in the body of his chosen Avatar. A full body shudder passed through him as his emotions immediately overwhelmed him the second he realized where he was and what it meant for him to have ended up there. A few seconds later, tears of relief streamed down his face even as a huge grin split his face; he was almost home.

Harry wiped the tears from his face after a couple of minutes had passed and brought up the room's Option Menu so that he could continue on to Aincrad. Only when the Window popped up, the green button that would let him continue his game was grayed out while the red End Game button glowed ominously. Unwilling to accept the possibility that he would never be able to return to the place he saw as home, Harry jabbed the Resume Game Button repeatedly in an attempt to force the game to send him back to Aincrad.

Again and again he pushed the button as his earlier relief quickly turned to frustration and then to anger as a result of the repeated failures. Unwilling to admit defeat, Harry pressed his finger against the button as hard as he could and screamed out in rage, " _You can't keep me here! I_ _ **will**_ _go home!_ "

Harry's magic, now fully bound to his Avatar, surged in response to his anger and his desperate desire to return to the one place he saw as home and his magic poured into the disabled Menu Option through the finger he had pressed against the grayed out button. The world flared gold around Harry a heartbeat later and Harry gasped in shock when he felt the button under his finger burn before he felt a surge of hope as he watched the button slowly turn from gray to green. As soon as the transformation of the button was complete, the world around Harry shattered yet again and when his vision cleared, Harry found himself standing in front of the Seimei no Ishibumi.

Shocked by what had just happened, Harry fell backwards onto his butt as he stared up at the ominous black wall that contained the names of every single person that had logged into SAO on that fateful day; a grim monument that tracked the lives and deaths of the many Players that Kayaba had taken hostage.

Unable to help himself, Harry's eyes were inevitably drawn to the spot where he knew the name Joe Bloggs had been carved into the stone and it felt as if someone had sucker punched him in the stomach the moment he noticed the way his penname had been slashed through with a double line; a clear indication that he was supposed to be dead. Immediately after his name was the time and date of his death and the cause of his death: 16:59, December 21, 2019 – System Error. A gasping sob escaped Harry's lips over the realization that he really had died.

That he hadn't dreamed that strange encounter with the women as a result of being poisoned by the Stinging Salamander he'd hooked with his Fishing Rod.

The burst of fear he felt in that moment nearly consumed him before it suddenly fizzled out as confusion replaced terror in the blink of an eye. If he was dead, then how did he end up in the former Sosei-sha no Ma? Was he still dead if he was here in Hajimari no Machi once more? And what was that thing that had happened with the Resume Game Button in the Game Over Room where a Player was sent when they died in the game? What was it that had caused the button to burn and change colors?

There were at least a hundred more questions running through his mind but before he could put words to even one of them, the world around him flashed white for a split second as the three scary old women from earlier seemingly stepped out of the Monument of Life. Seeing the women appear out of the stone as if it wasn't there drew a soft whimper from Harry as he scooted himself backwards across the floor in an attempt to escape from the trio of adults that had just tried to send him back to the Dursleys or to what he thought was Hell.

The faint sound drew the women's attention to Harry and he curled his arms over his head as if to protect himself from an attack even as tears of frustration spilled down his face in response to being in their presence once again.

" **Silly, child; you can not run or hide from us,** " the middle woman admonished as the three of them moved to circle the frightened nine year old. " **We are the Fates; we see all.** "

"I wasn't running! And I'm not hiding!" Harry adamantly protested as he dropped his arms away from his head and bravely glared up at the woman with all the indignation that his nine year old self could generate.

" **Is that so?** " the woman standing behind Harry inquired with more than a little amusement. " **Then what would you call cowering on the floor in this Otherworld when you were meant to chose between Life and Death?** "

"I wasn't going to let you bully me into going some place I didn't want to be! I don't care if I am dead! This is my home! And I refuse to leave it!"

" **This half life you have chosen will not allow you to escape your Destiny,** " the woman on Harry's left side informed him in a neutral tone.

" _I'm not leaving!_ " Harry all but snarled in a defensive tone that caused his magic to flare.

" **Sisters, did you feel that? This child has somehow managed to use the Blessing that Hecate bestowed upon him when his Thread of Life was first added to the World's Tapestry to tie his soul to this Otherworld; that must be why his Thread of Life was not automatically severed by his Untimely Death,** " the woman behind Harry breathed in surprise while the woman in front of him frowned down at him.

" **His Thread is still tied to his Destiny as well and if we can not send him to his Destiny or to Hades' Realm, then his Destiny must be pulled to him,** " the woman in front of him declared before she finally looked away from Harry and glanced at the woman standing off to Harry's left.

" **Yes, that would be for the best,** " the woman on the left agreed as she reproduced the same bright green thread she or possibly one of her sisters had been holding in the white world.

Harry eyed the three women with trepidation as the ones in front and behind him both reached out to take hold of the thread that the one on the left was holding. Even as he watched, the women began chanting words that Harry couldn't understand that caused the thread in their hands to start glowing gold. The instant the visible length of the thread had lit up, the three women ended their chant on a commanding note as they pulled hard on the glowing thread. The light coming from the thread seemed to pulse as a result before it split into multiple strands except where their hands were.

Harry tried to see where the threads were going but his attention was quickly drawn back to the sisters as the woman in front of him grabbed hold of his right hand in a firm grip. He made a single attempt to yank his hand free but her grip was too strong and his second attempt was halted by the woman standing behind him placing her hand on his head; her touch literally freezing him in place. Harry was then forced to watch as the third woman tied the portion of the thread that hadn't been split apart around his right wrist.

All three women let go at the same time and Harry felt the thread wrapped around his wrist snap taut like the line on his Fishing Rod when a fish took the hook. It was pure instinct that saw Harry yanking his arm back and up, like he was pulling on his Fishing Rod, to prevent whatever it was that was on the other end of each of the seven strands that had split away from the thread from pulling him out of Aincrad. He felt resistance at first before the world seemed to split and tilt on its side before everything snapped backed into place without warning.

The next time Harry became aware of himself, he was laying flat on his back at the base of the Seimei no Ishibumi and there was a Notification Window hovering in front of his face with a system message informing him that he'd unlocked a New Quest. As soon as he closed the Window, a new Window popped open and began playing an action sequence that showed a man splitting himself into seven parts and anchoring six of the parts to Items that flashed across the screen one at a time; a diary, a ring, a locket, a chalice, a diadem, and a snake.

The next sequence that played out showed those six items being hidden within six different Dungeons that Harry had trouble making out while the seventh part of the man swelled in size until he was practically the same size as a Boss Monster. His features then twisted until he looked rather like a Boss Monster too; his skin became tinged with green and took on the appearance of scales, all of his hair fell out, his blue eyes turned crimson, his nose flattened until there were just two slits for nostrils, and his body sunk in on itself until he looked like a living skeleton held together by his snake-like skin.

The short movie clip ended with the man-turned-Monster being dropped into a seventh partially hidden Dungeon as he snarled at Harry from the open Window and the nine year old hurriedly reached out to close out the screen so he wouldn't have to look at it any more. Instead of closing though, the picture faded from sight to reveal the words 'Begin Quest?' over a green acceptance button. Harry's stomach twisted up in knots just thinking about being forced to face the ugly Monster-man and he tried to close out the Window without accepting the Quest but it wouldn't let him.

" **You can not escape your Destiny, Harry James Potter,** " the Fates, the three women from earlier, intoned in perfect sync and Harry snapped his head sideways to stare at them with wide, frightened eyes. " **You** _ **must**_ **accept the Quest in this Otherworld in order to fulfill that Destiny now that you have forsaken both Life and Death.** "

"I don't want to go on a Quest!" Harry complained as he scowled at the women.

" **You do not have a choice, child; you must accept your pre-ordained Fate now or your Fated Enemy will tear this Otherworld apart in his desire to destroy you before you can defeat him.** "

Harry's breath caught in his throat in response to the idea that the Monster-man he had watched in the horrible movie clip could destroy his home. He grew angry a split second later; there was no way he was going to let some creepy guy who tore himself into Monster pieces ruin his home! Determined to stop the man before he could harm so much as a single millimeter of Aincrad, Harry jabbed his finger at the accept button without another word; the child completely unaware that he'd just been expertly manipulated by the Fates.

The screen flashed gold once before a solid black skeleton key that looked something like a snake that had been twisted into the shape of a key appeared at the same time as a new Notification Window popped open in front of him with the following information:

 _You've accepted your Divine Destiny!_

 _Every child is born with a Destiny and you were no exception! Born a Child of Prophecy,  
it is your Destiny to defeat the Seven Shades of Tom Marvolo Riddle before he destroys the  
Otherworld you've claimed as your home! Good Luck!_

 _ **Goal:**_ _Fulfill your Destiny by defeating all Seven Shades of the Tom Marvolo Riddle by  
completing the Seven Quests of Fate  
 **Reward:**_ _…?  
 **Failure Penalty:**_ _…?_

"Man, this sucks," Harry grumbled as he closed the Notification Window and reluctantly snagged the Key out of the air before he froze with his hand still out in the air front him (his fingers clenched around the Key) when it finally occurred to him that all of the Notification Windows that he'd received since the women had tied that stupid thread to his wrist had been written in English instead of Japanese.

A frown curled the corners of his mouth downwards as he glared down to at the thread in question only for the glare on his face to morph into a confused frown when he realized that he could no longer feel or see the thread. He then climbed to his feet and began making his way out of the Seimei no Ishibumi and unexpectedly walked headfirst into an invisible wall. Harry let out an indignant yelp and clutched at his head for a moment before his memory of the night he'd been locked in the Central Plaza slammed into the forefront of his mind and he furiously threw himself at the wall.

"Let me out! _Let me out!_ _**Let me out!**_ " Harry all but screamed as he pounded on the wall with his fists in an attempt to break it. He even tried kicking it a couple of times but nothing he did so much as cracked the unseen wall and the futility of attacking it soon had him sinking to his knees in despair and frustration over the fact that he'd once again been trapped against his will.

" **You can not leave until you start your Quest, child,** " the Fates informed him the moment his cries had died down to hiccupping sobs.

"I accepted your stupid Quest already! Now let me go!" Harry countered as he whipped his head around to glare at the women that were still trying to tell him what to do.

" **You will not be able to leave this room until you complete the first seventh of your Quest.** "

"I can't do that if I can't leave the stupid room!"

" **The way forward is in this room; you need but open your eyes to find the door that fits the key.** "

Harry wrinkled his nose up in annoyance as the three old hags disappeared from the room right after they'd given him that last piece of advice. He then slammed his left fist into the invisible wall one last time before he wearily climbed to his feet and glanced around the cathedral to make certain that the old women really had left this time. When he didn't see them anywhere, he placed on hand on the invisible shield keeping him from leaving and walked back and forth from one side of the room to the other several times in an effort to find a way through the barrier that he couldn't see.

Eventually, he gave up on escaping and reluctantly began searching for a locked door of some kind that would take him to wherever it was that he was supposed to go to start the stupid Quest he'd been given while ignoring the way the room seem to shrink with each step he took. It wasn't until he stepped behind the stone monument to search the northern wall that he found what he was looking for on the floor behind the Monument of Life near the middle of the room. Instead of the actual door he expected to find, all he could see was an etching on the stone floor that looked much like the key he still had clutched in his hand.

Harry stared at the shallow indent for a long time as he tried to decide if he should place the key on top of it or not. In the end, Harry knew he didn't have a choice; he had to do it or he'd forever be trapped in the cathedral.

Letting out an inaudible sigh, Harry dropped down to sit in front of the barely visible image. He then carefully set the Snake Key directly over top of the etching on the floor. The moment Harry let go of the Key, it sank into the stone until it was flush with the floor and Harry scrambled backwards in case it was a trap. Right after the Key stopped sinking, the faint lines of a snake began to form around the key one right after another; making it appear as if an invisible hand was carving a snake into the stone right that second.

When the last line had formed, the entire snake and Key (held in the snake's mouth) swelled up out of the floor to form a statue fused to the stone with the tail of the snake forming a raised circle that looked like a handle. Once the statue had fully formed, a pinpoint of gold light appeared a foot below the 'ring' that split into two and raced off in opposite directions for a foot and a half, cut sharply upwards at a ninety degree angle for three feet, cut back inwards at another ninety degree angle, and then crashed back together exactly three feet above their starting point before disappearing.

Harry had no more than a split second to wonder what had happened to the light before he let out a startled gasp when the snake statue, the Key, and all of the stone that had been inside of the racing lights vanished in the blink of an eye to reveal a darkened staircase that disappeared somewhere beneath the Monument of Life. If not for the fact that he didn't really want to be there or enter the Dungeon that had just been opened, Harry might have thought the opening animations had been rather cool.

As it was, Harry just wished that he was anywhere but where he was right that moment.

* * *

 **Translations:** Japanese to English

Hajimari no Machi – Starting City or Town of Beginnings  
Seimei no Ishibumi – Monument of Life  
Sosei-sha no Ma – Room of Resurrection (New Translation)

 **Game Terminology:**

Aincrad – **A** n **Inc** arnating **Rad** ius (the name of the Castle that is SAO)  
Avatar – the term for a playable character that a player uses during game play  
Experience Points – the points earned for each quest completed and each Monster killed  
FullDive – the use of technology to fully immerse one's conscience in a virtual reality  
HP – **H** it **P** oints: the number of Life Force/Life Points/Health Points a person has  
Melee Fighter – a warrior class character that fights up close (usually with hand to hand combat or a hand-held weapon designed for slashing, stabbing, or bashing)  
Melee Weapon – a weapon designed for close combat (sword, knife, club, staff, etc)  
Mod – short for moderator  
NerveGear – equipment created by Kayaba Akihiko (Argus); allows the user to enter FullDive  
NERDLES – **Ner** ve **D** irect **L** inkage **E** nvironment **S** ystem (a surgically implanted chip that allows the FullDive system to interface with the brain – the surgically implanted part may or may not be canon as it was something I thought seemed more logical than it just being part of the interface helmet)  
Player Stats – A list of a player's in game statistics and skills  
Ranged Fighter – a warrior class character that fights from a distance  
Ranged Weapon – a weapon designed to strike from a distance (bow & arrow, catapult, gun, etc)  
Skills – set abilities that can be performed by characters/players in a game  
Skill Points – Experience points that are applied towards mastery of an in game skill

 **Notes:**

In case it wasn't obvious; yes, Harry is DEAD. That means, no, he's not going to wake up back in his body when the game is cleared and attend Hogwarts as if nothing has happened. He is, essentially, something of a ghost now; though he's nothing like the ghosts that call Hogwarts home since he still has all of his magic _and_ his soul was partially merged with the computer coding that made up his Avatar. What that means for Harry (and the wizarding world) aside from him NOT attending Hogwarts will be explored within the story in later chapters or possibly in the sequel.

* * *

Harry's Game Data/Stats (6Wks Post Launch, Before Death):

 **Category:** Human Player  
 **Caste:** Warrior  
 **Class:** Ranged Fighter  
 **Type** : Bowman  
 **Level:** 20  
 **HP:** 1925/1925  
 **Cor:** 26,720  
 **Attributes:** DEF [13], ATK [23], STR [05], AGI [10], STM [05], & LCK [10]  
 **Unspent Stat Points:** [97] (20 extra points carried over from Beta Test)

 **Main Equipment:**

Oak Longbow – Reliable Bow accurate up to 200 yards +10 ATK  
Steel Arrows – Med. quality Arrows; oak shafts fletched w/ duck feathers & tipped w/ steel Arrowheads +3 ATK  
Bamboo Rod – a simple bamboo pole with a basic hook tied to it with a fishing line  
Leather Boots – Sturdy boots that make noise: +2 DEF  
Leather Gloves – Sturdy gloves that protect a player's hands: +1 DEF  
Leather Clothes – Sturdy clothes that protect a player's body: +5 DEF

 **Equipped Skills:** 14 Slots (2 carried over from Beta Test & 3 extra from 'glitch')  
(Basic 1-250 pts, Advanced 251-500 pts, Proficient 501-750 pts, Expert 751-999 pts, & Master 1000 pts)

Archery – 0521  
Cooking – 0435  
Detection – 0472  
Fishing – 0399  
Hiding – 0454  
Hunting – 0487  
Listening – 0251  
Longbow – 0422  
Night Vision – 0113  
Searching – 0593  
Sneak – 0664  
Tracking – 0592  
EMPTY  
EMPTY

 **Unarmed Skills:** 05 (1 carried over from Beta Test & 1 extra from 'glitch')

Camping – 0485  
Escape – 0275  
Navigation – 0568  
Scouting – 0473  
EMPTY

 **List of Unequipped Skills Unlocked:**

Animal Call – 0052  
Climbing – 0063  
Dead Shot – 0191  
Howl – 0032  
Humming – 0086  
Research – 0081  
Short Bow – 0362  
Singing – 0029  
Sprint – 0177  
Stargazing – 0621  
War Cry – 0018  
Whistling – 0048

* * *

 **AN:** _In case you missed the note above (placed directly above Harry's current stats), yes, Harry is DEAD. No, he won't suddenly come back to life and attend Hogwarts after the game has been completed. If you want more info on what that means, you can scroll up to read the original note and/or wait until that information is relayed through the story towards the end of this story or at some point in the planned sequel._

 _Now I know some people might be annoyed with me introducing the Fates but I needed a bridge between Harry and the real world in order for him to fulfill the prophecy now that he's 'dead' in the real world. He also needs a way to sever the connection between himself and the prophecy in order to erase any need for him to ever appear in Hogwarts and so I drew the Fates into the story and it flowed very nicely from my PoV. They will appear off and on throughout the story until Harry has 'fulfilled his Destiny'._

 _Not sure if there's anything else I need to cover right now. Aside from saying that chapter eight will be up a week from today, that is. So, thanks for all the views/reviews/adds and hope everyone is still enjoying the story. ~ Jenn_


	8. Meltdown of Epic Proportions

**Disclaimer:** _Usually, I write out a very specific disclaimer explaining exactly what it is I don't own but once again I find myself not really interested in doing so for this story as it's very tedious. Suffice it to say I own nothing that was created by anyone else and I'm making no money whatsoever from the writing of this FanFiction._

 **Warnings:** _Mild to moderate violence, character death, foul language, alternate universe (i.e. kiss HP canon goodbye), angst, drama, starts pre-Hogwarts Era, original Quests, some minor religious themes, child neglect, references to large scale ostracization/shunning of a minor, and who knows what else._

 **AN1:** _This story is self-beta'd; so there may be occasional grammatical or spelling errors that crop up every now and then and for those I apologize in advance._

* * *

Chapter Eight: Meltdown of Epic Proportions

 _Saturday, December 21, 2019 8:09 PM  
Sosei-sha no Ma, Hajimari no Machi, First Floor_

Letting out an angry huff over being forced to follow someone else's orders for the first time in over a month, Harry opened up his Menu to see what he had on hand for weapons since he didn't know what had happened to his Longbow after he'd fought the stupid Stinging Salamander he'd caught while fishing and to check the current date and time. His anger would quickly turn to confusion as soon as he opened his Menu to find that it too had been switched over to English. Even more confusing were the number of glowing Sub-Menus; a clear indication that a bunch of stuff had changed after his fight with the Salamander and before he'd just opened his Menu.

Harry glanced between his open Menu and the dark stairway that he believed led to an underground Dungeon of sorts several times before he decided that it would probably be best to know what else had changed before he started on the stupid Quest that he'd been told he _had_ to do. He then sat down on the floor and gave his Menu his complete attention as his eyes first went to the time and date stamp at the top of the default Menu and felt rather weird when he saw that it was still the twenty-first and that he'd only lost four hours since he'd hooked the Stinging Salamander.

He thought more time than that had passed but shrugged off the oddness of time stretching itself out as he opened up the first flashing Sub-Menu; his Player Stats Page. He went to skim over the page the moment it opened only for his eyes to get stuck on the very first line that listed the category that his character fell under.

His mind went blank as he stared at the words at the top of the open screen.

 **Category:** Data Corrupted

Harry had no idea what that was supposed to mean aside from the fact that the game no longer categorized him as a Human Player for some reason. He didn't even try to figure it out because all he could see in his mind's eye was the way his penname had been crossed out on the Monument of Life. In a desperate attempt to think about something other than the game's recent inability to recognize him as a Human Player, Harry let his eyes drift further down the Stat Page. He didn't get very far before yet another alteration leapt out at him.

This time, it was the line that reflected his current and total HP. The same line that hadn't changed once since he'd hit level ten even though it was supposed to have increased by a hundred and seventy-five points of HP with _each_ level he had gained. Harry felt as if the back of his throat was burning as he realized that his HP had finally changed after all this time. He wasn't really all that happy about it though. That was odd, really; since he would've thought that he would've been happy to see his HP finally being adjusted to reflect the number of levels he'd gained over the past six weeks.

It was kind of hard to be happy about the change when instead of the significantly higher point value he had hoped and expected to see, all he saw was a line of asterisks and a system warning that stated that his HP was incalculable though.

The biggest problem he had with the game being incapable of calculating his HP was the fact that he had no way of knowing just how much HP he had and how many hits he could take before he'd shatter. A glance up and to the left of his vision revealed a golden HP Bar that appeared nearly twice as long as the one he'd had prior to being bumped up to level twenty; so that was something, at least. It wasn't until he dropped his eyes back down to his open Stats Page that it dawned on the nine year old that his HP Bar was the _wrong_ color.

As soon as that realization struck him, Harry gasped and his eyes widened comically as he jerked his head up a second time to stare at the altered HP Bar sitting just slightly above his head in confusion bordering on hysteria; HP Bars were supposed to be _green_ when they were full, _yellow_ when you took a hit that dropped you below three-quarters of your total HP, _orange_ when your HP Level reached about half of your total Points, and _red_ if you had less than one quarter of your HP remaining.

HP Bars did _not_ turn **gold**.

And yet… his HP Bar _was_ most definitely **gold**.

It was not a yellow-orange or an orange-yellow in color like the glow that engulfed a Player when they gained a level but an honest to goodness _twenty-four caret_ **gold** that glinted metallically as it hung in the air above him.

One acute panic attack and twenty-eight minutes later, Harry mechanically exited his Stats Page without even taking notice of the fact that the point counts for his Stamina and Luck Attributes also now registered as incalculable. He had never really paid all that much attention to his Character Attributes because he didn't really understand the significance of the Character Attributes in RPGs; he was still very much a newbie when it came to gaming, after all (SAO was pretty much the only RPG game he'd ever played).

He did, however, take notice of the flashing Item Sub-Menu and a small frown tugged at his lips as he tried to figure out what was bothering him about the flashing line. It wasn't until he realized that his Inventory was flashing red like it usually did when he'd reached the maximum storage limit instead of a yellowy-gold like the rest of the Menus and Sub-Menus that had been affected by his recent level increase and his… his death. A full body shudder wracked Harry's body as the image of his crossed off name on the Monument circled through his mind yet again in response to the reminder.

Once he'd shoved the unwanted memory into the depths of his mind, he frowned at the flashing bar of red on his Inventory/Equipment Menu. He knew it had been a while since he'd last been in town to sell off the stuff he didn't need but he also knew that his Inventory hadn't even been close to full when he'd hooked the Stinging Salamander earlier that afternoon. He didn't know if that meant that he'd somehow picked up a bunch of junk or if the bug that had infected his Menu over three weeks ago had mutated and corrupted his Menu further.

It was with great reluctance that he opened the Sub-Menu in order to find out what the problem was since going into a Quest with a full Inventory was just asking for Monster Drops to toss him cool stuff he couldn't carry. What he found was both good and bad news. The good news was that his Oak Longbow and Arrow Quiver were both safely stored in his Inventory; meaning he wasn't going to be forced to go into a Quest unarmed. The bad news was that the space limit of his Inventory had apparently been cut in half by whatever glitch it was that had affected the rest of his Menu.

Thankfully, those Items over his limit hadn't been automatically destroyed or lost at the time of the adjustment and he would be able to pick and choose which Items he would keep. The number of Items he'd be forced to abandon would also be reduced by two since he could reequip his Bow and Quiver in order to clear out two spaces. The fact that he'd lost his Sleeping Bag, Camp Chair, and Bamboo Fishing Rod meant there were three less Items he'd have to give up as well; though he did mourn the loss of all three Items.

He'd loved that Sleeping Bag and he'd enjoyed Fishing (something he had never been allowed to do in the real world); though he was still upset about the fact that his last catch had been a ruddy Monster instead of another tasty fish.

Focusing back on the list of Items in his Inventory, Harry began the tedious process of sorting through the stuff he knew he needed to keep, the stuff he'd like to keep, and the stuff he could trash. He also needed to consider those Items that couldn't be removed from his Inventory; such as his Healing Potions, Antidote Crystals (of which he now had a total of five types – he'd picked up Blindness and Dizzy Antidotes a week before he'd leveled up), Transport Crystals, Healing Crystals, and Message Record Crystals.

Thankfully, those Items only took up one Inventory space each whereas pre-glitch, each Item used to take up a number of spaces equal to the quantity of the Item in question; so fifteen Healing Potions would have taken up fifteen spaces in the Inventory. There were some exceptions; Arrows took up one space for every ninety-nine Arrows on hand – so one hundred Arrows would take up two spaces. Or at least they had prior to Harry leveling up to level twenty; looking at the list of Items in his Inventory now he could see that his Arrows had been infected with the Item Glitch.

Each type of Arrow now took up exactly one slot and showed that there were exactly ninety-nine Arrows of that type present in his Inventory. It was possible that the rest of his extra Arrows had been deleted but the fact that none of his other Items had been deleted gave him reason enough to believe that that wasn't the case. He could check that out after he dealt with the rest of his Inventory. Contrary to his earlier concerns, not all of his remaining Items had been affected by the glitch as Food, Drink, and Clothing Items all took up a number of spaces that were equal to the number of Items.

That meant that he could open up another couple of spaces simply by eating a couple of Items. Or he would if he could actually stomach eating anything right that minute; which he couldn't. Letting out a soft sigh, Harry scrolled down to the bottom of the Item List and took note of how many Items were highlighted in red (as that would tell him how many Items he had that was over his limit). The revelation that he'd picked up a Leather Pack when he'd killed the Stinging Salamander (since he didn't like to think it had ended up in his Inventory through other means) cheered him up a little.

After he finished going through the List, Harry equipped his weapons and the pack before he transferred several Items into the pouch to clear out his Inventory; most of them Food Items with high Durability (like the bottles of Mulled Cider and Candy Canes). He also trashed a few Items that he knew he wouldn't need and that he'd only been holding onto so he could sell them the next time he was in town (like the extra two sets of Leather Boots he had on hand). The last thing he did was make certain that he had a handful of empty spaces so that he could pick up useful Items while on his Quest.

Once he finished cleaning up his Inventory, Harry moved onto the Skills Menu so he could fill the new Skill Slots that should have been unlocked when he reached level twenty. The moment he opened the Sub-Menu, he knew the glitch had messed with it further. To start, instead of seeing the current number of available Skill Slots at the top of the Sub-Menu, there was now a pair of asterisks and another system warning that indicated there was 'No Limit Applied' to the number of Equipped and Unarmed Skill Slots that had been unlocked.

On top of that, the nested Sub-Menu inside of the Skills Menu where the Unequipped Skills that he'd unlocked had been listed no longer existed while all of the Skills that he had unlocked to date were listed in the Skill Slots under their assigned Skill Type (Equipped or Unarmed). On top of that, he was now unable to unequip a Skill once it was unlocked; which meant that he'd be able to use every single Skill he'd unlocked whether he wanted to or not. And there were some Skills that he had no interest in using (such as the numerous Sword Skills – not that he had any of those at the moment).

Backing out of that Menu, Harry checked to view the last Sub-Menu under the Inventory/Equipment Menu that had been highlighted; the in-game camera. The moment he selected that option, a Notification Window opened up to inform him that the automatic download feature had been permanently disabled due to the system being disconnected from the computer. The panic attack that hit Harry upon reading that was five times more severe than the one he'd experienced as a result of the changes that had been made to his in-game categorization and HP Bar.

First he gasped and spluttered and verbally denied the truth of what he'd read before he'd collapsed backwards onto the floor, clutched at his chest, and blacked out. When he'd woken up, he'd taken one look at the still open Notification Window and flew into a rage filled temper tantrum; had he been thinking clearly, he would have wondered why no one had come to see what was happening while he'd been yelling his head off but it never really occurred to him to wonder why no one had heard him having his tantrum slash panic attack.

The cycle would be repeated twice more before numbness set it and he just sat there dumbly staring at the Notification that had driven reality over the nine year old like an out of control lorry.

He'd been disconnected from his 'stolen' computer.

His connection had been cut from the computer and yet he was _still_ inside the game.

He had truly died.

And yet… somehow, he still lived on inside of the game.

Numbness gave way to denial once more and Harry fumbled through the Menu after closing out the horrifying notice in order to attempt to upload one of the other files that he had downloaded onto the hard drive weeks earlier. As soon as the Window closed, he received another message informing him that a new Sub-Menu, called Photo Album, had been added to the in-game Menu Camera. The brief description said that the new Album would store a copy of all photos taken by the Camera but he barely paid any notice to that as he closed out that Window just seconds after it had popped open.

After closing out the Notification Window regarding the new Sub-Menu, Harry paused for a brief moment to see if any more Windows were going to pop open without warning before he continued with his plan to upload something from Dudley's old computer. The moment he opened the Upload Sub-Menu under the Options section of the Settings Menu, Harry received the same exact message a second time and as he stared at the open Notification Window, tears began pouring down his cheeks as the realty of his death hit him once more.

Instead of sinking into another cycle of repeated tantrums and panic attacks this time, Harry mechanically closed out the system message and his Menu before he climbed to his feet and shuffled towards the gaping hole in the floor that he believed was the access point to the Quest that he'd been given by the Fates. As soon as his foot landed on that first step, a line of torches lit up along the wall beside the staircase but Harry hardly noticed the flicking lights and the dancing shadows they cast as he blindly descended the stairs.

There was only one thought circling through his mind; he was dead.

He was dead.

Dead.

His relatives had either pulled the plug on him or they had left him locked up in his cupboard instead of sending him to the hospital when Kayaba's trickery had first been announced. Or maybe it had been the Stinging Salamander after all.

He was dead.

His relatives or the game had killed him.

Dead.

 _Dead._

 _ **Dead!**_

Harry's feet stepped off the final step and still Harry didn't notice his surroundings. Not even when the torches on the wall beside the stairs winked out at the same time as a line of torches lining both walls of the inward spiraling corridor that he now stood in flared to life. He didn't even see the first snakes (realistic snakes whose species could be found in the real world and not any of the Monster Snakes that were found in the game like the Vicious Vipers) that slithered out of cracks along the base of the walls. He certainly noticed it when the first one bit his ankle though (hard to miss the sudden blare of Status Warning of being Poisoned) and Harry's apathetic trance snapped in the blink of an eye.

Letting out a roar of pure fury, Harry viciously retaliated in response to the attack; his Bow and an Arrow materializing in his hands without conscious thought on his part. Years worth of pent up anger and frustration over the way his relatives had treated him were released in a torrent as Harry fought his way along the ever inward turning corridor while tears of grief and pain poured down his face in a torrent. Each Arrow that successfully struck its target would shatter the snake it hit; the multiple deaths surrounding Harry with a haze of red crystal shards and the dying hisses of snakes.

"Why!?" Harry railed as he fired Arrow after Arrow at every single glimpse of movement and every flash of color he caught out of the corner of his eyes; a few of his Arrows even destroying a couple of the torches that lined the wall when he mistook their flickering light for an attacking snake. "Why, damn it!? Why couldn't they love me!? Why didn't they want me!? Wasn't I good enough to love!? I followed their stupid rules and did everything they told me to do! So, why!? Why did they hate me!? What did I ever do to them!?"

Harry's furious words echoed up and down the twisting corridor several times until they became garbled to the point where they lost all meaning before they faded away while his questions remained unanswered.

His anger would carry him roughly a third of the way through the spiraling corridor where he stumbled into a Safe Zone that was clear of snakes. The sudden cessation of attacks saw Harry stumbling to a stop when his anger had petered out due to a lack of targets to vent his fury on. All he was left with in the place of said anger was a burning heartache and cold tears that continued to course down his face in a never ending stream; the coding that directed each Player's reactions to various emotions fueling the continued storm of simulated saline that poured down his face.

Without his anger to push him on, Harry dropped to his knees as the mental exhaustion of maintaining such a volatile emotion (one he rarely ever felt, let alone voiced) for who knew how long hit him all at once. The nine year old passed out two seconds later. When he woke up sometime later, Harry felt rather numb as he mechanically cured himself of the Poison Status that had been inflicted on him by the snakes that had bit him. He then restored his HP using a Healing Crystal when he finally noticed that his HP Bar had shrunk to less than a quarter of its total length; though the color of the Bar was still gold rather than the red it _should_ have been.

He also forced himself to eat a single Sausage Roll and drink down a bottle of Cider despite the fact that he wasn't really at all hungry or thirsty. After he finished the small meal, Harry automatically checked the current durability of his Bow and replaced the Bowstring when he noticed how much 'damage' and 'wear' the weapon had taken since he'd entered the Dungeon. He then checked the number of Arrows in his Quiver and opened up his Menu to pull more Arrows out of his Inventory when he noticed he had less than a dozen left on hand.

As he restocked his Quiver with more Arrows, Harry learned that his earlier assumption that the Arrows in his Inventory were now self-replicating Items like his Crystals had been correct; meaning that he had an unlimited supply of the types of Arrows that he currently had on hand. That was both good news and bad news. It was good news because it meant that he'd never run out of Arrows. At the same time, it was bad news because it meant that those Arrows would take up space in his very limited Inventory and make it harder to replace them with better Arrows later on.

The confirmation that the glitch had basically infected _everything_ in his Inventory (the exaggeration not even registering to his childish mind) made Harry unreasonably angry at something other than his relatives for once. This time, he was angry at the game that he'd come to consider home and instead of sending him on another rage filled rampage, it made Harry turn his back on the Quest he'd been given. He was sick and tired of this game that was no longer a game and he just wanted out.

Unfortunately, Harry didn't have the option of quitting; the Fates had locked Harry into the Quest that represented the Destiny with which he had been born. And the moment Harry tried to back out of said Quest, the counter measures that the Fates had put into place to prevent him from trying to 'escape' his Destiny activated.

The moment Harry took a single step in the direction of the exit, a slab of thick stone dropped down out of the ceiling and blocked off the corridor. If that wasn't bad enough, the moment Harry placed his palms against the stone obstruction and made a futile attempt to push it out of the way, the stone wall began moving towards him. And removing his hands from the moving rock wall didn't make it stop. In fact, the moment he took his hands off of the moving wall, it picked up speed as it continued to bear down on the moody little archer.

Within seconds, Harry had been forced out of the Safe Zone and found himself besieged by another swarm of low level venomous snakes and _still_ the wall continued to push him onwards. Harry's HP Bar would drop down to the halfway point before he managed to bring his Bow into play and he had to work hard to fight off all of the snakes that were swarming over and around him while keeping ahead of the moving wall behind him lest it squash him flat. Once he cleared a path through the snakes in front of him, he ran forward in order to escape from the stupid things.

He wouldn't stop running until he lost sight of the moving wall but while he slowed down, he didn't stop moving as he continued to fight off the snakes that had followed him and the new ones that appeared from out of the walls. Anytime he thought of stopping, the far off grinding of the wall still moving somewhere behind him would spur him into picking up his pace. The constant flow of snakes seeking to bite him also kept him moving. He was at least thankful that it only ever took a single Arrow to destroy each snake; he didn't like to think of how much worse it would have been if he'd needed to hit each snake multiple times before they shattered.

A shudder wracked Harry's body as he briefly imagined trying to fight off a hoard of Stinging Salamanders in place of the rather weak snakes (the nine year old finally noticing that all of the snakes were between levels one and five) that he was currently fending off.

Now that he was actually paying attention to his enemies and his surroundings, it felt like time had slowed to a crawl as he fought his way forward in an effort to escape the moving wall that he thought was trying to crush him; his fear of the moving wall strong enough that it took his mind off the fact that he was trapped in an underground hallway (much like his earlier anger had blinded him to his current surroundings when he first entered the Dungeon). It also felt like he was moving through an unending circle as the corridor continued to curve in on itself without end.

Everywhere he looked it was the same dirty gray stone walls and floor painted with the yellow-orange of flickering torch-light and an endless tide of venomous snakes in shades of greens, blues, browns, and blacks.

By the time he'd traveled about two-thirds of the way through the spiraled corridor and stumbled upon a second Safe Zone, Harry was well and truly sick of both snakes and stone walls; his inner turmoil and preoccupation with the unfairness of being forced on this stupid Quest the only things keeping him from panicking over the fact that he was essentially trapped in this underground Dungeon.

As soon as Harry stepped into the Safe Zone, another stone wall dropped down to cut him off from the way back; though this one thankfully didn't start moving. Harry made certain to keep his hands far away from the blockade as he didn't want to accidentally push a hidden trigger on the thing that would activate it. Once he was sure he wasn't going to get chased out of the Safe Zone by the new wall, Harry methodically restocked his Quiver, downed a Healing Potion, and used another Antidote Crystal before he forced himself to eat a pear and drink his last bottle of Chilled Milk.

He was just thinking about camping in the Safe Zone for the 'night' when the wall that had blocked off the corridor behind him scraped along the side walls as it lurched forward. Cursing his luck, Harry angrily fired a handful of Arrows at the wall and then took off running when each impact against the wall only made the thing move faster. He would end up taking his frustration out on the snake population that converged on him yet again the moment he stepped outside of the Safe Zone.

Once he reached the 'end' of the coiled corridor, Harry suddenly found himself standing in front of what could only be the door to the Boss Chamber. The huge door was circular in shape, appeared to be made of metal, and decorated with an etching of a realistic looking snake with green gemstones for eyes. The moment he was standing in front of the door, all of the snakes that had been hounding him from the moment he set foot in the circular Dungeon vanished like smoke before a breeze and the moving wall that had been threatening to squish him ground to a stop; much to Harry's relief and consternation.

He was relieved because the sudden absence of the snakes meant he didn't have to keep fighting while the fact that they fled in the face of the Boss Room filled him with dismay because it meant that whatever was beyond that door scared them. He did his best not to think about the wall that locked him in the small section of hallway between the Boss Chamber and the unmoving slab of stone since the moment he did, he knew he'd panic because of how small of a space he was currently trapped in.

The anger that had carried him through the last third of the corridor fizzled out about the same time and once again left Harry feeling numb as he stood in the empty section of walled off corridor and stared at the ornate door in front of him. For five long minutes, the tormented nine year old considered just barging ahead into the Boss Room in order to get the ordeal over with but he eventually decided against it.

He was just too tired and heartsick beneath the numbness that was now smothering him.

The moment Harry decided he needed a break, the wall beside him cracked open to reveal a hidden Safe Room where he could rest without fear of being attacked by snakes or stupid walls while he slept. When he cautiously entered the room, Harry was rather surprised to find an overly large room that was twenty feet long, ten feet wide, and furnished with a bed, a table, a desk, and two chairs. There was also a connecting door that led into a large washroom that was only five feet shorter in length than the main room.

None of the other Safe Zones he'd used in the past had ever had anything like that in them.

Instead of thinking about the matter too deeply though, Harry simply took a shower in the bathroom (leaving the door open so he didn't feel trapped) before he pulled the covers off the bed and spread them out on the floor (he'd shied away from the bed since he'd never once slept in a real one), curled up in the covers, and fell into a deep sleep. He woke up what felt like several hours later feeling even worse than he had before he'd gone to sleep and it was with great reluctance that he got up off the floor to take another shower, eat a wedge of Fruit Cake, use a Healing Potion and a Poison Antidote Crystal (he'd forgotten to heal himself earlier), and returned to his blanket nest.

This time, he tossed and turned for a long time before he fell into a fitful sleep that was riddled with nightmares. The next time he woke up, Harry just sat in his borrowed blankets and stared at the wall for a long time before he dropped off back to sleep without conscious thought. When he next woke, Harry had a second meltdown as his earlier rage returned and he cussed and cursed and trashed the entire room before he screamed himself hoarse. After his tantrum, he fell asleep on the floor yet again and slept the sleep of the dead for what felt like weeks when he finally woke up once more.

The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes, was the mess he'd made during his little tantrum.

Ashamed of his earlier behavior (mostly because it reminded him of his spoiled cousin), Harry scrambled up in order to put everything back where it belonged. Once he'd finished putting the room to rights, he would nibble on a few fruits and vegetables before he soaked in the tub for several hours and did his best not to think about anything. He'd eventually haul himself out of the tub and return to the nest of blankets on the floor to sleep some more as the drive that had pushed him through the endless curving hallway of the underground Dungeon remained dormant.

Harry had lost complete track of time by that point (and for some reason his Menu was no longer capable of telling him the date or time which only made it harder for him to determine how much time had passed) and he spent several waking and sleeping cycles of doing nothing but staring at the ceiling between restless naps until the day he opened his Player Menu to stare at the system notice that had shaken his world. This time, he just felt numb and resigned over the reminder that he was dead but somehow not dead because he had returned to the game.

It still hurt.

And it still made him angry.

But he no longer had the energy to rage against the unfairness of it all.

After a while, he closed out the Notification Window and absently paged through the rest of his Menu. It was as he was listlessly shifting between Menu Pages that Harry discovered he had somehow gained access to all of the games and other software programs that had been installed on Dudley's old computer; the links appearing in the various Sub-Menus of the Settings Menu based on program type – for example, the game links were found under the Game Play Sub-Menu that let him change his in-game settings.

Though how it was possible for him to play those games or use the other programs without a connection to a computer and access to the original disks that held their software was a complete mystery to him; the nine year old completely unaware that his magic had 'captured' every scrap of digital data that had been on his 'stolen' computer and shunted it into the game through his NERDLES. Of course, being a kid, Harry just had to test some of the games that were listed just to see if they worked or if it was just another example of the rampant corruption the glitch had caused to his Menu.

He was more than a little surprised to find that all of the games and programs did work; though he spent more time checking out the games than he did the other stuff. Some of the games popped up in Windows that allowed him to play them just like he'd play them on the computer (only without the hassle of using the mouse or keyboard – he could move and select things just by touching them with his finger). Other games (in particular, those games that used the FullDive Technology) would temporarily create a doorway into a pocket Dungeon where he could play those games.

The idea of playing a game inside of a game was rather weird but Harry quickly got over it. He thought it might be nice to have something to do if he ever got bored while he was here but didn't expect to actually play any of the other games all that much since he really couldn't see himself getting bored with Aincrad. Then again, there might be times when he wanted to escape this world since he'd never get a chance otherwise seeing as how there was no way to log out of Aincrad and even if he could, there was the little problem of him being _dead_.

Case in point; Harry had just spent what felt like several hours trying out several of the games listed in his Menu in order to continue putting off the Quest that he was supposed to be completing.

Another discovery was the revelation that the various dictionaries and thesauruses he'd uploaded six weeks earlier had been moved from his Inventory and affixed as help programs under the Help Menu. He hadn't even realized the 'books' he'd uploaded from the computer had disappeared from his Item Storage until he saw that section since he had mostly stopped using them a long time ago because he'd pretty much memorized the words that were used most in the game and therefore didn't need to translate everything every time a new Window popped open like he had in the beginning.

Of course, the fact that his Menu and all of the System Windows were all now written in English also made such help aides redundant.

The last change he discovered was that while he could no longer upload things from the computer in his cupboard, he could, on the other hand, still download things from the internet. The discrepancy was kind of weird but Harry didn't question it too much since it allowed him to pretend that nothing had changed even if he knew deep down in his heart that nothing would ever be the same again. Of course, there were a lot of things that Harry was ignoring at the moment because thinking about them cut too deeply and stirred up too many negative emotions.

And while he'd slowly been breaking free from the conditioning that the Dursleys had foisted on him (to never seek attention from others, to never show his emotions, and to never voice his curiosity) through their rules, he couldn't just forget eight years of suppression. So, his earlier emotional outbursts made him feel rather ashamed of himself and worried that someone would punish him for it at some point. A part of him was even wary of the fact that the Fates hadn't punished him for daring to backtalk them a couple of times earlier.

Of course, the Quest they'd forced on him could be considered punishment enough.

The Quest he was, in fact, in the middle of right that moment.

Harry grimaced over the mental reminder of the Quest that he was supposed to be completing right that minute. He'd pretty much forgotten all about the Quest during his repeated temper tantrums and emotional breakdowns. He grew worried at that point as he wondered if there was a time limit on how long he had to complete the Quest and if he would automatically fail the Quest if he didn't finish it within that time. This was actually the first ever Quest that Harry had taken in the game so he wasn't really sure how they worked.

Sure, he knew where most of the Quests could be found on the First Floor thanks to his explorations (both in the Beta Test during the summer and in the Live Version of the game these past weeks) but that was all he knew. He'd had no interest in them at the time he'd stumbled on each of them. He'd been far too caught up in exploring Aincrad to bother with doing favors for a handful of NPCs in the game just to earn a prize that he may or may be able to use. He also hadn't felt he was hero enough to take those Quests that involved rescue missions.

He might have imagined himself as following in the footsteps of the [in]famous Robin Hood but he didn't really know how to be a hero. He'd always been the victim, the one that needed to be saved. He hadn't even been able to save himself from the Dursleys and they weren't even all that evil for all that he'd always seen his relatives as his personal villains (or demons) since they'd never actually hit him or anything like that. And now he'd never be saved or even have a chance to save himself because he was dead.

"Dead. I'm dead," Harry announced to the empty air. "I bet my relatives are all pleased to know I'll never burden them again. They're probably celebrating right this minute." The anger and heartache he felt over the perceived truth in those statements drove Harry to his feet as he declared, "Well, I'm happy to be free from them too! I'm glad I'm dead because it means I'll never have to see their ugly faces again! You hear me!? _I DON'T CARE!_ I'll live here forever and ever and no one will ever tell me what to do again! I won't let them! And I won't let anyone else lock me up anymore either!"

Harry wiped the tears off of his face as he stormed out of the Safe Room he'd been hiding in for who knew how long. He was tired of being locked in this stupid Dungeon and if the only way for him to get out was to finish the stupid Quest he'd been given, then that was what he was going to do. He'd show the Fates. He'd finish their stupid Quest and then tell them to leave him alone so he could get back to exploring his home.

The second he set foot in the corridor outside of the Safe Room, Harry was attacked by another hoard of snakes and he let loose a War Cry as he brought his Bow up and fired the first Arrow. By the time he'd shattered the last of the stupid serpents, Harry was breathing hard and his Quiver was nearly empty; the Item only capable of holding two hundred Arrows. After taking a moment to catch his breath and heal his injuries, Harry restocked his Quiver with more Arrows and squared his shoulders before he marched up to the door of the Boss Room.

A system tag flickered into view labeling the Boss Room as the Chamber of Secrets the moment he was within arm's reach of it. Harry wrinkled his nose at the mystical sounding name for a room buried deep under the Koku Tetsu Kyuu even as he wondered what kind of secrets it could possibly hold aside from the stupid Boss that he was supposed to fight all by himself. Instead of thinking about it for too long lest he talk himself out of finishing the Quest right that minute, Harry took a deep breath, shoved the door open, and walked into the room beyond with his Bow in hand.

* * *

 **Translations:** Japanese to English

Hajimari no Machi – Starting City or Town of Beginnings  
Koku Tetsu Kyuu – Black Iron Palace  
Sosei-sha no Ma – Room of Resurrection (New Translation)

 **Game Terminology:**

Aincrad – **A** n **Inc** arnating **Rad** ius (the name of the Castle that is SAO)  
Attributes – are the 'inherited' or 'natural' characteristics that all Players, NPCs, & Monsters are given in an RPG game (examples include Strength, Defense, Agility, etc.)  
Avatar – the term for a playable character that a player uses during game play  
Dungeon – an area within the game where players can attack or be attacked by Monsters (or other players)  
Experience Points – the points earned for each quest completed and each Monster killed  
FullDive – the use of technology to fully immerse one's conscience in a virtual reality  
HP – **H** it **P** oints: the number of Life Force/Life Points/Health Points a person has  
NERDLES – **Ner** ve **D** irect **L** inkage **E** nvironment **S** ystem (a surgically implanted chip that allows the FullDive system to interface with the brain – the surgically implanted part may or may not be canon as it was something I thought seemed more logical than it just being part of the interface helmet)  
Player Stats – A list of a player's in game statistics and skills  
Ranged Fighter – a warrior class character that fights from a distance  
Skills – set abilities that can be performed by characters/players in a game  
Skill Points – Experience points that are applied towards mastery of an in game skill  
Sword Skills – programmed movements that initiate attacks within the game

 **Notes:**

Harry's Emotional Meltdown – Please keep in mind that Harry is a _nine_ year old child that has been systematically shunned and neglected throughout his formative years at this point in the story. On top of that, he was emotionally repressed up until he first started playing the Beta Version of SAO; meaning that his emotions hadn't really been given much of an outlet and there's only so long a person can hold in their emotions before they explode all over the place.

That's what happened to Harry in the last two chapters. Does that mean he's going to be a blubbering mess for the rest of the story? No. However, it **will** take time for him to learn how to cope with his volatile emotions (particularly those of a negative nature) _and_ it will take him time to learn how to properly express his emotions in a healthier way. So, he _will_ have moments of angst and drama. Not completely unexpected though; as I said earlier, he _is_ a child.

* * *

Harry's Game Data/Stats (After Death):

 **Category:** Data Corrupted  
 **Caste:** Warrior  
 **Class:** Ranged Fighter  
 **Type** : Bowman  
 **Level:** 20  
 **HP:** ****** System Error: HP Incalculable  
 **Cor:** 26,720  
 **Attributes:** DEF [13], ATK [23], STR [05], AGI [10], STM [**], & LCK [**]  
 **Unspent Stat Points:** [97] (20 extra points carried over from Beta Test)

 **Main Equipment:**

Oak Longbow – Reliable Bow accurate up to 200 yards +10 ATK  
Steel Arrows – Med. quality Arrows; oak shafts fletched w/ duck feathers & tipped w/ steel Arrowheads +3 ATK  
Leather Boots – Sturdy boots that make noise: +2 DEF  
Leather Gloves – Sturdy gloves that protect a player's hands: +1 DEF  
Leather Clothes – Sturdy clothes that protect a player's body: +5 DEF  
Leather Pack – Sturdy backpack that allows a player to carry extra Items even when their Inventory is full

 **Equipped Skills:** ** System Error: No Limit Applied  
(Basic 1-250 pts, Advanced 251-500 pts, Proficient 501-750 pts, Expert 751-999 pts, & Master 1000 pts)

Animal Call – 0052  
Archery – 0601  
Climbing – 0063  
Cooking – 0435  
Dead Shot – 0219  
Detection – 0472  
Fishing – 0399  
Hiding – 0454  
Howl – 0032  
Humming – 0086  
Hunting – 0487  
Listening – 0251  
Longbow – 0422  
Night Vision – 0113  
Roar – 0019  
Searching – 0593  
Short Bow – 0362  
Singing – 0029  
Sneak – 0664  
Sprint – 0177  
Tracking – 0592  
War Cry – 0018  
Whistling – 0048

 **Unarmed Skills:** ** System Error: No Limit Applied

Camping – 0485  
Escape – 0275  
Navigation – 0568  
Research – 0081  
Scouting – 0473  
Stargazing – 0621

* * *

 **AN:** _Chap 9 to be posted on 03-18-18. ~ Jenn  
_


	9. Riddle's Diary

**Disclaimer:** _Usually, I write out a very specific disclaimer explaining exactly what it is I don't own but once again I find myself not really interested in doing so for this story as it's very tedious. Suffice it to say I own nothing that was created by anyone else and I'm making no money whatsoever from the writing of this FanFiction._

 **Warnings:** _Mild to moderate violence, character death, foul language, alternate universe (i.e. kiss HP canon goodbye), angst, drama, starts pre-Hogwarts Era, original Quests, some minor religious themes, child neglect, references to large scale ostracization/shunning of a minor, and who knows what else._

 **AN1:** _This story is self-beta'd; so there may be occasional grammatical or spelling errors that crop up every now and then and for those I apologize in advance._

* * *

Chapter Nine: Riddle's Diary

 _Day Unknown, Date Unknown, Time Unknown  
Level One, Destiny's Dungeon, Floor Unknown_

Harry didn't know what he had expected to find when he walked into the Chamber of Secrets but it certainly wasn't a large, dank stone chamber filled with giant statues of open-mouthed snakes, moss covered floors, walls riddled with wide tunnels, an over-filled stagnant pool of water, and the humongous head of a monkey-like face with flowing hair that disappeared into the green-tinted pond of scummy water at its base. He'd barely taken two steps into the room before the door behind him snapped shut with a loud clang that echoed through the room.

A heartbeat later, he heard the whoosh and crackle of fires roaring to life all around him as the open mouths of the snake statues were suddenly filled with creepy green flame. The new light only made the whole chamber look even creepier and Harry felt more than a little tense and nervous as he brought his Bow up to nock an Arrow before he cast his gaze about the room for some sign of the Boss. He half expected the Monster-Man from the movie clip that had played when he'd first accepted the Quest to leap out at him from the deeper shadows that sat behind the snake statue-torches but he was immensely glad when it didn't.

Aside from the statues and the water, the room was also strangely empty except for a thin object sitting on the ground beside the pool that sat beneath the monkey-man's moss covered head. It was even empty of Minions (those weaker Monsters that usually fought alongside of a Boss).

Curious as to what the thing sitting on the floor in front of the giant head could be, Harry crept closer to it using Sneak. He was roughly four yards away from it when he recognized it as a book. Harry frowned as he also recognized it as the same book that had in the movie clip with the Monster-Man. That realization put the nine year old on guard because he hadn't forgotten the way the Monster-Man in the movie clip had cut himself into pieces and shoved those pieces into the Items that had been hidden different Dungeons that had been far too dark for him to identify.

Scanning the chamber a second time still didn't give him an idea of where the Boss was hiding or why it hadn't made an appearance yet and Harry caught his bottom lip between his teeth as he tried to figure out what to do next. Fear gripped his heart just two seconds later when it occurred to him that the Boss might have escaped the Dungeon to start destroying Aincrad as the Fates claimed he would do if Harry didn't complete their stupid Quest. He _had_ hidden in the Safe Room for what must have been _weeks_! Not to mention how long it had taken him to reach the Boss Chamber.

For several minutes, Harry stood frozen in place; the nine year old torn between sticking around in case the Boss was still in the room and heading back up to the surface to see if the Boss was up there. It was the fear that his home was being destroyed that saw him take two steps back towards the exit before he froze again and tossed a glance over his shoulder at the book lying unprotected on the floor in front of the statue. Would it be okay to just leave that thing lying around when he knew what was inside of it?

Should he take it with him? Should he hide it somewhere in the chamber? Or should he destroy it?

Uncertain of what to do, Harry glanced between the book and the door several times before he warily crept closer to the book to get a better look at it just to make certain it was the same one from the movie clip. The moment he got within ten feet of the seemingly innocent book, the top cover opened as if lifted by an invisible hand and Harry snapped his Bow back up as his heart began beating so hard he thought it might burst out of his chest. When nothing else happened, Harry took another step closer to the book only to freeze again when the pages began turning rapidly.

Scanning the shadows around him, Harry tried to figure out who or what was moving the book before he carefully moved just one step closer to see what happened next. As if his next step was some sort of signal, the pages stopped moving and a beam of light shot up into the air above the book. The light soon unfolded into yet another Window and as Harry watched, the Window began playing another movie clip.

This time, it played out a series of attacks from a giant snake-like Monster that turned several children to stone on the orders of the teenaged version of the Monster-Man from the first movie clip. After each child was attacked, the movie would play out a scene of a bunch of frightened children before it cut to an image of the teen wearing a satisfied smirk that said he was pleased with the harm and fear the Monster-Snake was causing on his orders. The last victim of the attacks would be a girl with glasses but instead of her being turned to stone, the girl died.

The very end of the clip would then show the teen ripping an image of himself away before he shoved it into the book that was currently sitting on the floor. Movie over, the Window shattered to pieces and the piece of the teen that had been placed inside of the book rose up out of the object. Harry scrambled backwards in fear as the face of the teenaged man directed a cruel smirk at him the moment he stepped out of the book. Without waiting for the Monster-Teen to speak or make the first move, Harry fired two consecutive Arrows at the Boss's head.

To his shock (and horror) both of the Arrows soared through the Boss as if passing through an illusion.

The Monster-Teen laughed soft and low before he drawled, "You can't hurt me; I'm nothing but a memory so long as I am imprisoned within the Chamber of Secrets. I can hurt you though and I will use you to break the chains that hold me here so that I can rise greater than ever before. You should feel honored by my willingness to use you; there are few people in this world that are worthy enough of being my new host."

The world around Harry froze at that exact moment as a new Notification Window popped up in front of him with the following message:

 _While exploring the Dungeons beneath Hogwarts Castle, you stumbled across Salazar  
Slytherin's legendary Chamber of Secrets. Eager to claim the treasures rumored to be  
hidden inside, you rush in and find yourself caught in a trap left behind by Slytherin's  
Heir. Your only hope of escape is to defeat the first Soul Shade of Tom Marvolo Riddle.  
Fail and the Soul Shade will consume your life force to gain the power necessary to  
conquer your world._

 _ **Quest Title:**_ _Riddle's Diary  
 **Goal:**_ _Defeat Riddle's 1_ _st_ _Soul Shade (Level 15) and Diary Horcrux  
 **Reward:**_ _Gains the Dusky Boots, 1 Full Level plus 5 Stat Points, the Player's Journal,  
and 1 Snake Key  
 **Failure Penalty:**_ _Loss of ½ of your current Party, ½ of the Items on hand, ½ of your  
total Skill Points, and 1 Full Level _

_**Start Quest?  
** Yes: [_ _ **O**_ _] No: [X]_

Harry scrunched his nose up in confusion once he'd finished reading through the notification; how could he lose half of his Party if he wasn't in a Party? He then scowled when he noticed the option to back out of the Quest had been disabled; meaning that he had no choice but to complete the Quest. Of course, he'd already known that he didn't have a choice (the old hags had told him so before they had vanished) but he thought he might have been given a chance to back out of the Boss Fight in order to level up a couple of times.

"How am I supposed to kill a ghost, anyway?" Harry demanded out loud as he pulled his eyes away from the open Quest Window to glare at the frozen Soul Shade that hovered a mere three yards away from him.

There was no answer to his question. Not that he'd actually expected to get one. But he had really, really wanted one.

Letting out a quiet huff, Harry returned his gaze to the open Window as he tried to figure out how he was supposed to defeat a Boss Monster he couldn't hit with his Arrows. He also had no idea what a Diary Horcrux was or how he was supposed to destroy it. His eyes drifted away from the Window of their own accord as Harry tried to think of what he was going to do now. His gaze soon got caught on the green fire burning inside of the mouths of the snake statues and he absently wondered if the Diary thing could be burned, if he could find it.

Harry furrowed his brow a split second before he snapped his head back to where the shade of Tom Riddle stood and looked beyond the ghost-like Boss to focus on the book that the shade had risen from. Could that be the Diary that he was supposed to destroy? It _was_ the book from the movie clips. But did that make it the Horcrux thingy that he was meant to destroy? And if it was, did he have to destroy it first in order to beat the ghost or did he have to find a way to beat the ghost first before he could destroy the Diary?

He then returned his gaze to the green fire in the nearest statue as he thought about the best way to get the book to the fire… or the fire to the book to see if he could destroy it that way. He then glanced down at the Bow and Arrow in his hands as he considered how best to use them if he couldn't fight Riddle's Shade directly. A split second later, he wished he still had his Bamboo Fishing Rod because he could have used it to snatch the book off the floor. Harry blinked in response to that thought before he lifted the Arrow in his hand up so he could see it better.

He then recalled the extra Fishing Lines he still had in his Inventory and he wondered if he could tie one of them to his Arrow so that he could fetch the Arrow back once he shot the book with them. There was only one way to find out and Harry quickly opened up his Menu to access his Inventory so that he could take out a spare Fishing Line. He quickly tied one end of the clear, white Line to the shaft of the Arrow just in front of the fletching while the other end was tied to his belt so that he wouldn't lose it after he fired the Arrow.

Harry knocked the Arrow once he'd finished knotting both ends of the Line and lined up his shot before he let go with one hand so he could close out the Quest Notification. He'd barely pressed the yes button to accept the Quest when the world around him unfroze at the same time as he replaced his hand on the Bow. Harry then double checked his aim before he loosed the Arrow and Line and he watched the Line light up with blue light as the attack registered and sent the Arrow straight for the book; his ingenuity would unlock another Archery based Skill called Line Shot.

"Foolish boy! I told you that you can't hurt me with your pathetic toys!" Riddle's shade sneered as the Arrow and string both passed harmlessly through the left leg of the shade before the Arrow buried itself in the Diary behind him.

"Shows what you know, dummy! I wasn't aiming for you!" Harry snapped back as he slung his Bow over his back and grabbed hold of the combined Bowstrings with both hands before he gave it a hard yank backwards; causing the Arrow and the book to both fly towards him.

"What…?" Riddle countered with a frown before he noticed the book being pulled through him and he yelled, " _No!_ "

Harry ignored the Shade and grabbed up the slack in the Fishing Line before he yanked on it a second time to bring the book close enough for him to grab. As it landed at his feet, he grabbed hold of the Arrow stuck through the cover and used it to lift the Diary off of the floor as he ran over to the closest snake statue and used the Arrow to thrust the book into the green flames so he didn't burn his hands. At the front of the chamber, Riddle became solid as he screamed a second time when the book, Arrow, and Fishing Line immediately caught fire before both Arrow and Line shattered.

Harry grinned over successfully destroying the book and hoped that meant he could now destroy the ghost. He was just turning back to face the shade when he felt something slam into him and knock him to the floor; the unexpected blow knocking his Bow from his back. When he looked up, Harry caught sight of a large snake looming over him while the now solid looking ghost fumed from behind the snake. Snagging his Bow off of the floor from behind him, Harry fumbled for an Arrow that he used to kill the snake.

As soon as the snake shattered, he fired another Arrow at Riddle to see if he could hurt the shade now that the Monster-Teen was no longer see-through. The Arrow struck true and Riddle screamed again in response to being injured before he summoned several more snakes like the one Harry had just killed and sent them to attack Harry. Harry shifted up onto his knees and scuttled backwards even as he fired another Arrow at the closest snake before firing another one at Riddle only for another snake to sacrifice itself on the Arrow in order to protect its 'master'.

Biting his lip, Harry fired another three shots one right after the other at the teen in the hopes that at least one of them would hit the Boss before he was forced to deal with the snakes that were practically on top of him.

Riddle's response was to summon even more snakes that he sent at Harry.

On and on the battle dragged as Harry shattered snakes, took pot shots at Riddle, and scampered back and forth across the chamber in order to avoid the tails and teeth of the snakes. It was an exhausting fight and it seemed like every time he managed to hit Riddle, the stupid Monster-Teen would double the number of snakes that he conjured up the next time he summoned more Minions. Harry would have quickly gotten discouraged if not for the fact that he could see Riddle's HP visibly drop with each successful hit.

He would have been far happier if there were far fewer snakes involved though.

Twice, Harry had to scramble to replace the Arrows in his Quiver after he'd emptied the Quiver through the course of the battle. Most of the Arrows had been used to destroy the veritable flood of snakes that filled the chamber while the rest of them either struck Riddle or exploded into shards after they struck stone when he missed his targets. He'd also had to heal himself several times due to the number of snakes that slipped through his guard to sink their fangs in his flesh or slam their tails into him in order to knock him over in an attempt to put him in a position where the rest could mob him.

Eventually, Harry managed to drop Riddle's HP down to nothing and it was with great satisfaction that he watched the Shade shatter into a million crystal shards. His battle didn't end there though as the snakes that Riddle had called forth continued to attack him. The longer he continued to fight the snakes, the more worried that Harry grew since the Quest should have ended when he'd defeated Riddle. It wasn't until he saw a small, pale white snake dragging a blackened book across the floor that he remembered the Diary that he'd set on fire at the start of the battle.

A Diary that he had to destroy as part of the Quest. And a Diary that he'd thought he'd already dealt with when he'd watched it catch fire.

Nocking yet another Arrow, Harry darted forward and jumped over a pair of snakes that had lunged at him in order to get himself closer to the snake that was trying to carry off the book that he needed to destroy. As soon as his feet touched down again, Harry took aim at the snake dragging the book, drew back the Arrow, and let it fly. Two more Arrows would follow before Harry dashed several feet to the left in order to fire at a different angle; this time aiming for the book as his first three Arrows were intercepted by larger snakes looking to protect the book and the white snake.

It would take another ten Arrows and some fancy footwork before Harry got close enough to hit the small snake without the bigger snakes getting in the way of his Arrow. It took exactly seven Arrows to kill the white snake and a further fifteen to destroy the book. That wasn't even counting all the ones that had hit the other snakes or missed their targets. Once both had shattered, the rest of the snakes in the chamber exploded in a cloud of green shards that reformed into a green hexagon with the word Congratulations written on it in silver a split second before the door he'd entered through opened with a loud clang and a faint squeal.

At the same time as the Diary exploded into shards inside of the faux Chamber of Secrets beneath the Monument of Life within Aincrad, a black diary belonging to one T. M. Riddle hidden within a secret store room beneath the drawing room of Malfoy Manor in the real world burst into blood red flames as a cloud of black smoke rose out of the pages. The smoke coalesced into a face a heartbeat later and let out a shrill scream before it exploded into black and gray shards that faded into nothingness while ink and blood seeped out of the burning book.

The flames would soon spread out to engulf any number of dark artifacts that had been stored inside of the hidden room alongside the diary and by the time the owner of the mansion discovered the blaze, it would be far too late to salvage any of the items he'd once stored there in the room. Lucius Malfoy would be greatly annoyed over the loss of countless expensive and irreplaceable dark artifacts that his family had spent a lifetime collecting. But he would be utterly terrified over the destruction of the prized possession that his master had given him for safekeeping.

Lord Voldemort was not the forgiving sort and he did not tolerate failure. In fact, failures tended to upset the Dark Lord greatly and the one who so failed him was far more likely to end up dead than to be given a second chance to fail. And Lucius had failed to adequately protect the book with which he'd been entrusted by his master. So, one could say that the fear Lucius felt upon learning of the diary's fate was more than justified. One might even go so far as to claim that the Malfoy Patriarch was, for once, truly grateful that his master had been defeated by the vaunted Boy-Who-Lived.

Back inside of the underground Dungeon, a Notification Window opened up in front of Harry a full five seconds after his battle had finally ended.

 _ **Congratulations!**_ _You've successfully completed the Riddle's Diary Quest!  
 **Rewards Earned:**_ _Dusky Boots, 1 Full Level, 5 additional Stat Points, Player's Journal,  
and 1 Snake Key_

 _ **Claim Rewards?  
** Yes: [O] No: [X]_

Harry automatically selected the 'yes' button and watched as a pair of dark gray boots streaked with thin lines of black, silver, and several shades of gray and a black and green Snake Key similar to the one that he'd used earlier to unlock the hidden trapdoor behind the Monument of Life materialized in front of him. Another three Notification Windows would pop up a split second later; one informing him that he'd reached level twenty-one, one stating that he had gained five Stat Points, and the other one announcing that he'd unlocked a new Sub-Menu.

Harry put the new boots (he'd check them out later) and the new Snake Key in his Inventory before he closed out the trio of Notification Windows. He then turned his back on the Monkey-Man Statue and left the Chamber of Secrets so he could make his way out of the now eerily silent and empty Dungeon; he had no interest in exploring the Boss's Chamber further. He'd spent entirely far too much time inside of both the stupid Dungeon and the stupid Chamber of Secrets with its ugly statues as far as he was concerned.

The nine year old was more than a little surprised that he didn't encounter a single snake on the way out when he must have encountered what felt like millions of them on his way in.

Not that Harry was complaining; he hadn't exactly liked fighting all of those snakes!

He was, on the other hand, relieved that no new stone walls had dropped down out of the ceiling to block his way as he wearily retraced his path through the spiraling corridor and up the staircase towards the exit.

The moment he stepped off of the last stair, the open trapdoor in the ground that had led to the Chamber of Secrets snapped shut before it disappeared and the only evidence that it had ever existed was the faint image of a rearing snake with what looked like a key in its mouth that had been etched into the floor. Harry stared down at the carving for a long minute before he turned away and walked around to the front of the Seimei no Ishibumi. He would stumble to a stop when he caught sight of the three Fates waiting for him once more the second he rounded the edge of the Monument.

" **Congratulations, child; you are now one step closer to fulfilling your Destiny,** " the woman standing closest to Harry stated as all three women turned in his direction.

"I don't like you; you're mean," Harry childishly declared as he scowled at the three women that he firmly believed were dead set on making his life miserable.

" **You are hardly the first mortal to view us as such,** " the woman standing closest to the Monument of Life pointed out with obvious amusement. " **And you are far from the last who will view us as such through the centuries to come.** "

Harry rolled his eyes and let out a huff in response to the subtle teasing tone the woman had taken when speaking to him before he turned his back on the old hags and began walking towards the exit as he announced, "I'm going now."

" **Such impatience,** " the third woman chided as she appeared beside Harry in the blink of an eye and halted his forward movement by placing her hand on his shoulder. " **We are not yet finished with you, child.** "

"Bugger," Harry complained as he tried to shrug free of the woman's grip. "I don't wanna do another bloody Quest right now! I just barely finished the last one you made me take!"

" **Fear not, child; we will allow you two months in which to rest and grow stronger before you are required to return to this place in order to face the next Quest in your assigned Destiny.** "

Harry scowled in response to the implication that the old hags would come back to force him into the next Quest if he didn't start it before the two months were up. Just the thought that the three sisters would continue to tell him what to do was enough to make Harry want to kick them in the ankle and the only reason he didn't was because the Fates scared him. He didn't like the way they could lock him up with invisible walls just like Kayaba had that first day. And there was a small part of him that feared the Fates were actually Kayaba and that the man would throw him out of Aincrad.

" **Come, child; there is something you must see,** " the woman holding him instructed as she turned him back towards the Seimei no Ishibumi and gave him a gentle nudge to get him walking; the sound of her voice distracting Harry from both his growing desire for violence against the crones and his fears. Once they were standing in front of the towering stone monument, the woman gestured at the wall of names with her free hand as she ordered, " **Look closely, child.** "

Harry wrinkled his nose in irritation in response to the order before he did as he'd been told and stared at the wall. A frown pulled the corners of his mouth down two seconds later when he noticed that two of the names on the wall were glowing gold. He gasped in shock when he realized that both names were his names after reading them. Only, one of them was his real name and the other one was his penname. He then grew frightened over the fact that his real name was up on the wall because he'd never once used his middle or last name in the game; not even when he hadn't known any Japanese.

A closer look revealed that his penname, Joe Bloggs, was no longer crossed out and the date, time, and cause of death that had been written beside his name had disappeared. Another glance at his real name showed that it had been crossed out instead and that the date, time, and cause of death that used to be etched into the stone beside his penname were now etched into the stone next to 'Harry James Potter'.

Harry didn't know whether to cry over the reminder that he was dead or if he should feel relieved that it was his 'real' self that was dead and not the 'him' that was standing there in front of the Seimei no Ishibumi.

" **By refusing to choose between Life and Death, you have condemned yourself to a half-life in this Otherworld,** " the woman standing to his left declared as she reached out to brush her finger across his penname and made the gold letters flare brightly before they faded back to the same black as the other Players' names on the wall. " **Your reckless decision to flee into this pale mortal-made copy of the Overworld ultimately means that you will never return to the Overworld and that you will never set foot in the Underworld.** "

She then turned back to Harry and ominously added, " **Your entire existence is now forever tied to this Otherworld through Hecate's Blessing and when this Otherworld falls, as all false worlds fall; so too shall you fall.** "

"I don't care. I never wanted to leave my home anyway."

" **Foolish child, this half-life you have chosen is not a reward; it is a curse,** " the woman furthest from him chided with a trace of irritation and Harry scowled at her; he couldn't see how staying in the only place he'd ever felt at home could be a curse when compared to the curse that had been living with the Dursleys had been for him.

" **You would have better luck talking a rock into changing its colors, sister; the child is too young and far too stubborn to listen to your wisdom,** " the woman still holding Harry's shoulder dryly pointed out and Harry's scowl turned to a pout over being called stubborn.

Before the woman furthest from him could comment, the one that had been standing closest to the Monument when Harry had first stepped around the corner of the stone wall commandingly interjected, " **Cease your idle bickering, my sisters, and let us finalize our current business with the misguided child and be on our way; we have already tarried here far too long and even we can not hold back the Sands of Time for much longer without drawing our brother's ire for intruding upon his domain beyond necessity without his permission.** "

The woman holding onto Harry hummed in agreement before she finally removed her hand from his person and moved so that she was once again standing between her sisters as all three gathered just a short distance away from him. The three women then linked their hands together to form a small circle as they chanted in the same unfamiliar language that Harry had heard them using when they'd been messing with the green thread that they'd tied around his wrist. After a full five minutes, the women fell silent and dropped their hands before they turned to face Harry once more.

All three women then addressed Harry one last time in unison as they intoned, " **Two months you shall have to prepare yourself for the next Quest; a full sixty days and not one second more. Do** _ **not**_ **be late for we will** _ **not**_ **be pleased if you should attempt to escape your Destiny a second time, Child of Prophecy.** "

The three Fates disappeared in a flash of white light immediately after they'd finished speaking and Harry was left alone in front of the Monument of Life at last. Feeling completely and utterly drained, the nine year old crumpled to the floor and pressed his hands to his face as he tried not to burst into tears after everything that had happened to him. Once he'd regained control of himself, he glanced up at his HP Bar and noticed that the golden bar was still sitting well below the quarter mark since he'd not bothered to heal himself after the Boss Fight in the Chamber of Secrets.

Letting out a soft sigh, Harry opened up his Menu in order to grab a Healing Potion out of his Inventory only to freeze in confusion when his eyes fell on the time and date stamp at the top of the default page. He had to read it several times before he could comprehend what he was seeing and even then what he saw didn't make any sense to him. He knew he'd been trapped down in the underground Dungeon for _weeks_ (possibly _months!_ ). And yet… according to the time and date sitting at the top of his Menu, he'd actually only been down there for a whopping seven minutes.

Harry rubbed his eyes in an attempt to clear them since he was obviously seeing things but when he opened his eyes to check the time again, it still read: _Saturday, December 21, 2019 8:16 PM_

"That's not possible…" Harry murmured as he furrowed his brow and stared at the date and time for another several minutes. "It's probably just another stupid glitch."

The idea that he might lose track of passing time bothered Harry because it meant that he'd have a far harder time tracking how much time he had left before he was forced to face his next Quest. He did _not_ want to the Fates to come back and push him around again because he ran out of time without knowing it; he didn't think the old hags were the kind to listen to excuses (much like the Dursleys) and he didn't want them to punish him more than they already had. It was that fear that prompted Harry to open the Settings Menu so that he could link to the internet through the Upload function in order to check the time online.

Expecting it to be well into January by now, Harry was more than a little surprised when the website he'd opened up to check the current date and time in Tokyo (because that was what time the game ran on) and saw that the date and time on his Menu had actually been correct. He really had only spent a total of seven minutes completing the Quest he'd been forced to take. It still felt like he had been in that Dungeon for weeks or maybe even months. He knew the Boss Fight alone had to have taken hours at the least; what with all the ruddy snakes the stupid Monster-Teen had conjured up.

Another frown creased Harry's brow as he suddenly recalled what the one old hag had said about holding back time. Did that mean that the Fates had done something to stop time while he'd been throwing his tantrums and fighting for his life? Why would they do that? Would they do that _every_ time he was on one of their stupid Quests? Or did they only do it this time because it was his first Quest and they wanted to see how long it would take him?

After a few minutes, Harry gave up trying to figure out why the Fates did what they did due to the headache he'd given himself from the sheer number of unanswered questions that were rattling around in his head. He then turned his attention to healing himself and checking his supplies. While in his Inventory, Harry also took the time to check out the Dusky Boots he'd earned as a reward and discovered that they would boost his Hiding Skill and his Defense and Agility Attributes.

They also looked rather cool when he put them on because they made his feet hard to see when he was standing in the shadows. Once he was done admiring his new boots, Harry cautiously headed towards the exit with one hand stretched out in front of his face. When he was able to leave the former Sosei-sha no Ma, Harry breathed out a sigh of relief and had to blink the tears from his eyes; he'd been half afraid that he wouldn't be able to leave the cathedral of Koku Tetsu Kyuu despite completing the first Quest due to the way the one old hag had told him that he wouldn't be able to leave until he'd completed the rest of their stupid Quests.

Thankfully, the invisible wall that had trapped him in the room had vanished with the Fates.

Harry had only one thing to say about that; good riddance!

* * *

 **Translations:** Japanese to English

Hajimari no Machi – Starting City or Town of Beginnings  
Koku Tetsu Kyuu – Black Iron Palace  
Seimei no Ishibumi – Monument of Life  
Sosei-sha no Ma – Room of Resurrection

 **Game Terminology:**

Agility – a Character Attribute that is used to calculate how fast a player can move during a fight and how quickly they can attack in rapid succession; the more Stat Points assigned to this Attribute, the faster the play can move and attack  
Attributes – are the 'inherited' or 'natural' characteristics that all Players, NPCs, & Monsters are given in an RPG game (examples include Strength, Defense, Agility, etc.)  
Avatar – the term for a playable character that a player uses during game play  
Defense Stat – a Character Attribute that is used to calculate the amount of damage a Player receives when hit with an attack; the more Stat Points assigned to this Attribute, the lower the amount of damage  
Dungeon – an area within the game where players can attack or be attacked by Monsters (or other players)  
Guild – group of players that work together for a common goal  
HP – **H** it **P** oints: the number of Life Force/Life Points/Health Points a person has  
Party – a group of two or more individuals that work together for a period of time or a set task  
Ranged Fighter – a warrior class character that fights from a distance  
SAO – **S** word **A** rt **O** nline  
Skills – set abilities that can be performed by characters/players in a game  
Skill Points – Experience points that are applied towards mastery of an in game skill  
Stat Points – Experience points that are applied towards a character's attributes

* * *

Harry's Game Data/Stats (After Riddle's Diary):

 **Category:** Data Corrupted  
 **Caste:** Warrior  
 **Class:** Ranged Fighter  
 **Type** : Bowman  
 **Level:** 21  
 **HP:** ****** System Error: HP Incalculable  
 **Cor:** 29,341  
 **Attributes:** DEF [21], ATK [23], STR [05], AGI [15], STM [**], & LCK [**]  
 **Unspent Stat Points:** [105] (20 extra points carried over from Beta Test)

 **Main Equipment:**

Oak Longbow – Reliable Bow accurate up to 200 yards +10 ATK  
Steel Arrows – Med. quality Arrows; oak shafts fletched w/ duck feathers & tipped w/ steel Arrowheads +3 ATK  
Dusky Boots – Comfortable Boots that help a player blend in w/ the shadows +10 DEF, +5 AGI  
Leather Gloves – Sturdy gloves that protect a player's hands: +1 DEF  
Leather Clothes – Sturdy clothes that protect a player's body: +5 DEF  
Leather Pack – Sturdy backpack that allows a player to carry extra Items even when their Inventory is full

 **Equipped Skills:** ** System Error: No Limit Applied  
(Basic 1-250 pts, Advanced 251-500 pts, Proficient 501-750 pts, Expert 751-999 pts, & Master 1000 pts)

Animal Call – 0052  
Archery – 0725  
Climbing – 0063  
Cooking – 0435  
Dead Shot – 0493  
Detection – 0498  
Fishing – 0399  
Hiding – 0454  
Howl – 0032  
Humming – 0086  
Hunting – 0539  
Line Shot – 0025  
Listening – 0256  
Longbow – 0724  
Night Vision – 0305  
Roar – 0028  
Searching – 0646  
Short Bow – 0362  
Singing – 0029  
Sneak – 0681  
Sprint – 0198  
Tracking – 0592  
War Cry – 0043  
Whistling – 0048

 **Unarmed Skills:** ** System Error: No Limit Applied

Camping – 0485  
Escape – 0289  
Navigation – 0591  
Research – 0084  
Scouting – 0473  
Stargazing – 0621

* * *

 **AN:** _Running a little bit behind here as I'd been busy running around snapping photos instead of editing like I should have been and by the time I realized I hadn't prepped this chapter it was only a few minutes before midnight. Whoops. On the plus side, I've already edited the next chapter so it should be up on time. ~ Jenn =)_


	10. The Last Archer

**Disclaimer:** _Usually, I write out a very specific disclaimer explaining exactly what it is I don't own but once again I find myself not really interested in doing so for this story as it's very tedious. Suffice it to say I own nothing that was created by anyone else and I'm making no money whatsoever from the writing of this FanFiction._

 **Warnings:** _Mild to moderate violence, character death, foul language, alternate universe (i.e. kiss HP canon goodbye), angst, drama, starts pre-Hogwarts Era, original Quests, some minor religious themes, child neglect, references to large scale ostracization/shunning of a minor, and who knows what else._

 **AN1:** _This story is self-beta'd; so there may be occasional grammatical or spelling errors that crop up every now and then and for those I apologize in advance._

* * *

Chapter Ten: The Last Archer

 _Sunday, December 29, 2019 5:49 AM  
Southern Gate Approach, Tolbana, First Floor_

Harry slowed to a stop as he rounded the mountain and got his first view of Tolbana; the last city on the First Floor of Aincrad and the only city on the First Floor that Harry had never visited to date (in either version of the game). Tolbana was pretty much the only remaining part of the First Floor that he had not set foot in bar the Dungeon Labyrinth that led to the First Floor's Boss Monster but Harry didn't actually count that place as part of the floor since it was more of a between two-floors kind of place from what he could tell.

All told, it had only taken him seven weeks and four days to explore the rest of the First Floor.

The nine year old could have reached Tolbana sooner if he hadn't re-explored the same places that he'd explored during the Beta Test and if he hadn't spent most of the last ten days dragging his heels.

After he'd finally been allowed to leave the Black Iron Palace, Harry had only stuck around Hajimari long enough to replace the equipment he'd lost during the fight with the Stinging Salamander and sell off anything he didn't absolutely need (since his Inventory space was now so limited). He'd then rushed off to the Dungeons in an attempt to escape his memories of everything that had happened after he had reached level twenty. Once he thought he'd put enough distance between himself and the Town of Beginnings, he'd purposefully gotten himself lost in the 'wilderness' of the First Floor's various Dungeons in order to distract himself.

It worked, for the most part, but each time he closed his eyes, Harry would have nightmares about what he'd been put through and what he'd learned (most of those nightmares revolving around his death). He'd also had a couple more emotional meltdowns as he struggled with the knowledge that his body had died in the real world while his mind (his soul?) lived on in Aincrad. Towards the end of those ten days, Harry finally found a false sense of peace by choosing to ignore the grim reality of his death and pretending that Aincrad was the only world that existed.

Escapism didn't really solve the underlying issue but Harry was just a nine year old child whose unacknowledged magic had accidentally killed him in its effort to fulfill one of his deepest desires; to have a place to call home.

Once he'd managed to distance himself from those things that were bothering him, Harry had made his way to Tolbana in order to explore the last city on the First Floor; though a large part of him was leery of the crowds that he knew he'd run into once he set foot inside of the First Floor's largest city. He was at least thankful that the majority of Tolbana's population was made up of NPCs since the largest concentration of Players could still be found in Hajimari due to the fact that there were so few (relatively speaking) Players that were actually willing to risk their lives clearing the floors in an attempt to win the game.

Harry hadn't once given any thought to joining those that were attempting to clear the game; he just couldn't stay in Hajimari either though.

It wasn't that he was afraid (not even before his death had he been afraid of the game); he just had no interest in leaving Aincrad. Even in the Beta Test, he hadn't been at all interested in trying to win the game. He'd been far too wrapped up in exploring the world he'd quickly come to view as his home. He knew the other Players weren't content to live in this virtual world though; he'd heard far too many of them complain about how unfair it was that Kayaba had trapped them in what people both in the game and in the real world were now calling the Death Game.

He'd also heard rumors of Players fighting between one another for various reasons and there were times when it seemed like no one but Harry had found any happiness here in the game.

During some of his lowest moments over the past ten days, Harry sometimes wondered if that made him a freak here in this world too. Even if it didn't, he was pretty certain the fact that he'd died but wasn't actually dead would make him one for sure. Living after death was _not_ a normal thing to do, after all. And after living with the Dursleys for eight years, Harry well knew the difference between normal and _not_ normal. Living with the Dursleys had also taught him to keep his mouth shut and keep his secrets to himself lest others punish him for his unnaturalness.

And Harry had good reason to believe that the other Players would punish him if they knew about his dead-not-dead state; far too many people in the game had lost friends for them not to be angry with him for succeeding in returning to the game after his Avatar had shattered when their friends had not. On top of that, Harry was a Beta Tester and Beta Testers were pretty much universally hated now; though Harry wasn't really certain as to why that was. The last two potential reasons for the other Players to turn on him were the fact that he'd kept his created Avatar and the Cheat Code that had unlocked his Menu Glitch (since he didn't have to buy replacements for certain Items now).

So, yeah, Harry had plenty of reasons to avoid the other Players outside of the fact that he didn't really speak Japanese that well (a real life skill that had actually grown rusty over the past few weeks since he spent so much time avoiding the chances he'd been offered to use it – though his ability to read Japanese had certainly improved) and that he'd grown uncomfortable in crowded areas.

Harry wasn't really thinking about his death, the other Players, or the crowds he would soon face though. He was far too busy taking his first look at Tolbana. The very first thing Harry saw of the city was the impressive defensive curtain wall that barricaded the city in between two mountain ranges and protected it from Monsters. The formidable walls were just over three times taller than the height of the drawbridge that protected the only entrance into Tolbana on this side of the valley and Harry felt positively tiny beside it even when he was a good half a mile away from it still.

In some ways, the walls of Tolbana reminded him of the castles that were scattered throughout Great Britain and Harry felt his throat close up on him as he thought about all of the historical castles that he'd once wanted to visit but now will never be able to. He pushed that thought out of his mind a heartbeat later and forced himself to start walking again; there was a 'castle' sitting right in front of him waiting for him to explore its secrets. Tolbana might not be an actual castle and it might not have any historical significance but that didn't mean it wasn't worth exploring!

When Harry finally reached the entrance, he took a minute to stop walking just so he could tip his head back to stare up at the top of the wall and he let out an impressed whistle as he felt even smaller now than he had when he'd first seen the wall from a distance. After admiring the view, Harry crossed over the open drawbridge and passed under the portcullis into Tolbana where he was welcomed into the city by a pair of NPC guards that stood off to either side of the gate. He absently murmured an appropriate reply as his eyes were inevitably drawn to the colossus pillar looming over the city.

The same pillar that Harry knew housed the Dungeon Labyrinth that led up to the Second Floor of Aincrad.

Jerking his eyes away from the monumental structure, Harry let his eyes rove over the nearest buildings. He then picked a random direction (that wouldn't take him straight into the heart of the city where the largest congregation of Players and NPCs would most likely be found since that's the way the other towns had been set up) and began wandering through the streets of Tolbana while there were few Players (or NPCs) out and about the place. He wanted to see as much of the city as he could before he had to put up with the inevitable crowds that would flood the streets.

It would take Harry just over a week to explore and map out the entirety of Tolbana due to the sheer size of the city. And while Tolbana was no where near as colorful as Hajimari, it was still a beautiful city; or so Harry thought.

* * *

 _Wednesday, January 08, 2020 6:09 AM  
Outer Wall, Tolbana, First Floor_

Harry silently sat on the highest point of Tolbana's curtain wall and watched the sun rise over the valley that spread out from the foot of the wall as he slowly ate his way through a loaf of Black Bread (a specialty Food Item that was only available in Tolbana). It had taken him just over nine days to explore every inch of the city and now that he was done, Harry was feeling rather lost and at loose ends because he didn't know what to do next. He knew there were another ninety-nine floors to explore but that would mean leaving the First Floor – which was home in Harry's mind.

And while he could just continue to wander around on the First Floor, his heart wasn't in it at the moment because he'd already seen everything there was to see on the First Floor. He knew that there were still things he could do on the First Floor aside from explore. There were at least a dozen reoccurring Quests and another dozen one-time Quests that he could take, after all. But Harry had no interest in doing another Quest. Heck, he didn't even want to do the remaining six required Quests that the Fates had set up for him.

Or had it been Kayaba that had created those Quests for him?

This was Kayaba's world, after all.

Did that mean that Kayaba had set those Quests just for him? Did all of those Players that had died since the game's launch get a chance to come back if they somehow agreed to run the Freaky Fates Quests?

No, they didn't. And Harry _knew_ they didn't.

His ability to access the internet through his Player Menu meant that he'd read more than one article on the number of deaths in the real world that had been linked to their NerveGear and through said gear to SAO. The only reason why he'd bothered to read such morbid news articles was in an attempt to find out if his death had been reported as of yet. It hadn't. But he didn't know if that was because he was actually alive and Kayaba was just playing mind games with him for some sick reason or if it was because the Dursleys had hushed it up to keep anyone from linking Harry to them.

He also wouldn't have put it past his aunt and uncle to have secretly buried him in the back garden to avoid a scandal.

It wasn't like there was anyone in Little Whinging that would miss him, after all; so there wasn't anyone that would visit Number Four looking for him. Not even his teachers would notice his long absence since they'd never really noticed his presence in the first place. He doubted Mrs. Figg or her cats had even noticed his disappearance since it wasn't like she had anything to do with him outside of occasionally watching him for his relatives when the Dursleys wished to have a bit of family time away from him and his unwanted presence in their life.

And wasn't that just a painfully depressing thought.

Harry shook his head to shake away the useless thought of his relatives (relatives he was never going to see again if he could help it) and refocused his attention on more pressing (and infinitely more pleasant) thoughts. Such as what he was going to do now that there were no unexplored pockets of wilderness left to see on the First Floor. He supposed he could head into the Labyrinth in order to move up to the Second Floor but he doubted there was really anything left to see or find in the twenty-some floors that made up the Labyrinth.

He also didn't know if setting foot in the Labyrinth would force the Floor Boss to respawn and the last thing he wanted to do was end up facing a Boss Monster. Nor did he think the other Players would be impressed with him if he brought the Floor Boss back after it had taken them so long to find and kill it in the first place. Bad enough he still had to face six more of them on the stupid Fate's Quest thingies that he had to do.

Thinking about the Quests he'd been forced into accepting reminded Harry that he had just over a month left before he needed to complete the next one and he grimaced in response to the reminder. He really didn't want to do another Quest; the first one had been bad enough. He knew he really didn't have much of a choice though. The stupid old hags had made that perfectly clear roughly three weeks ago when they'd pushed him into completing that first one. Harry also hadn't forgotten the implied threat that he wouldn't like it if they had to come here just to force him to do the next one.

"Bugger," Harry halfheartedly complained to the sky as he finished off the last of his bread and scowled out over the valley below him without seeing it.

After another minute, Harry reluctantly took the Snake Key that was supposed to unlock the entrance to the next Quest out from his Inventory that he'd gotten after finishing the first Quest. No matter where he decided to go from here, he was going to have to deal with the next stupid Quest soon; even if that was the last thing he wanted to do. Still, Harry preferred to complete the Quest on his terms rather than wait for the old hags to force their terms on him a second time. And it wasn't like he had anything else to do, not really; though there were plenty of things he _wanted_ to do.

He just… felt lost.

If Harry had been older, he would have realized that the lost feeling was partially due to a good measure of his innocence being stripped away from him by his recent death followed by his encounter with the Fates. Another part of it was due to the way that loss of innocence had tarnished the world that he'd come to view as his true home. And lastly there was the fact that he'd been locked in this world first by Kayaba and then by his decision to force his way back into Aincrad after his death.

So, even though he was free to explore Aincrad to his heart's content, he no longer actually felt as strong of a desire to do so because Aincrad had become a large and overly fancy prison even if he refused to acknowledge that truth.

Harry didn't know that though and so he did his best to ignore those thoughts and feelings that made him feel more than a little uncomfortable in favor of pretending that everything was okay. His decision to head back to Hajimari to face the next Quest before his two month time limit was up also had more to do with him pretending that he had control over his life (or un-life as it was now) than it did on any desire to actually face the next Quest.

Once he decided to start the next Quest before his time limit was up, Harry returned the Key to his Inventory before he checked over the types of Arrows that he had on hand. A frown curled his lips downwards when he realized that he hadn't picked up anything better than the Steel Arrows that he'd picked up around level seventeen. He knew those weren't going to do him any good though. Sure, they'd probably work against any Snake Monsters he ran into (they had on the last Quest, at least) but it had taken him forever to defeat the Boss Monster and Diary with them even if he didn't count the missed or blocked shots.

So, that meant that he needed better Arrows.

And since he hadn't been able to pick up a better Arrow in a Monster Drop in well over a month that meant that he was going to have to buy them from a store or blacksmith.

Letting out a sigh, Harry closed out his Inventory and opened up his map of Tolbana in order to figure out where are all of the NPC stores and smithies were located since he hadn't really paid all that much attention to them when he'd been exploring the city. He then headed for the closest one in order to see what they had for Arrows.

* * *

 _Thursday, January 09, 2020 3:33 PM  
Unnamed Road, Outside of Horunka, First Floor_

After spending an entire morning trying to hunt down someone ( _any_ one) with Arrows for sale in Tolbana without any success, Harry had left Tolbana in order to check the other towns on the First Floor. There were five potential villages for him to search (not counting Tolbana or Hajimari) and he'd spent all of the previous day's afternoon and evening and most of today traveling between them in order to find an NPC store or smithy with Arrows for sale. So far, he hadn't had any luck and the only two towns that were left for him to check were Horunka and Hajimari.

Harry didn't really think he'd have luck in either town because even if he did find someone selling Arrows, the only Arrows he could expect to find in those particular towns would be of far lower quality than what he had now. That wasn't Harry looking down on the shops in those two towns either; that was just a simple statement of fact – Hajimari and Horunka sold low level, inexpensive equipment and supplies to low level Players with limited funds. His other option was to find a weapon smith that was willing to forge new Arrows for him.

He could, of course, also head up to check the stores in the towns on the higher floors that had been unlocked to date but he didn't know how long that would take since last he heard, the Clearers (the name that had been given to those Players that were actively attempting to beat the game) had defeated the Seventh Floor Boss back on the fifth. That meant that there would be at least six, possibly seven, floors worth of stores that he'd need to search just to find some better Arrows.

And while that _almost_ sounded like fun, Harry knew he'd need better Arrows just to travel between towns on the other floors but he had no way of getting said arrows or there wouldn't be a problem in the first place.

Harry might not be much of a proper gamer but even he knew that the Monsters would grow progressively stronger, the higher one moved through the floors of Aincrad. Just like the Monsters around Tolbana were almost all stronger than the Monsters around Hajimari; though there were times when he'd sometimes run into Monsters that were far lower or far stronger than the others in the immediate area. There were even times when he ran into Monsters that were in places where they didn't belong; like that one time when he'd been attacked by a coven of Vampire Squirrels in a field.

So, even if he just wanted to move up and explore the Second Floor, he'd need to get himself some better Arrows.

And that brought him back to his current problem; getting his hands on said better Arrows.

Harry scowled at the road in front of him as he made his way to Horunka. It really bothered him that he hadn't been able to find any Arrows for sale in any of the other towns he'd visited. He'd bought Arrows in every single town on the First Floor except Tolbana previously; so, why didn't they have any now? It wasn't like they were just sold out either; there hadn't been any Arrows or Bows on sale; not even the crappy Basic Arrows or Basic Short Bows. Not even the smithies that he had visited had any Bows or Arrows for sale; which was rather weird because they were the ones that _made_ the weapons in the game.

So, why wasn't any one making or selling Bows and Arrows any more?

Harry sometimes worried that his Menu Glitch had spread out to infect other parts of the game and that that was why he couldn't buy any new Arrows. At other times, he worried that the game refused to sell him any more Arrows because he never ran out of Arrows any more because of the Menu Glitch. There were even times that he feared that Kayaba had changed the rules of the game to banish all Arrows in the game just to make it harder for Harry to complete the stupid Quests that the Fates (which he was half convinced were actually Kayaba in disguise) had forced him to take.

Or that the man was trying to force him to kill himself with a sword or other melee weapon.

The nine year old would be forced to put his worries aside just a few minutes later when a small flock of Plains Vultures attacked him out of the blue. The annoying flying pests were dealt with rather easily due to their relatively low levels and it wasn't long after that that Harry finally reached the village of Horunka. He would then spend the rest of the afternoon searching for an NPC store or smithy that was selling Arrows or even an upgraded Bow. A continued lack of success would once again set Harry to worrying about what was going on and what he was going to do if he couldn't buy any better Arrows.

Harry left Horunka some three hours later and the unhappy archer reluctantly headed for Hajimari. He would stop and make camp in a Safe Zone located halfway to his destination when he got tired of running into the stupid Vampire Squirrels that lived in the forest that lined the road between Horunka and Hajimari. After a hot meal of Squirrel Stew, Harry curled up in his Sleeping Bag and stared up at the stars he could just barely see through the canopy of leaves that blocked his view of the nighttime sky until he eventually drifted off to sleep.

Harry would arrive in Hajimari no Machi just after sunrise the next morning and his first destination was the NPC Shop where he'd purchased his first Bow in the Beta Test. The store was off the beaten path (so to speak) and didn't see any where near as many customers as the stores that were found closer to the Central Plaza. Harry hoped the fact that fewer people went to that store would mean that he could buy Arrows there since there would be less of a chance that their stock of Arrows would have been sold out.

The store was closed when Harry arrived and instead of wandering around to kill time, he planted himself on the ground beside the door and ate an orange for breakfast. The reason why he chose to stick around was so that he could be the first one through the door when the store opened for the day. Harry didn't have too long to wait as the store opened promptly at seven o'clock and the store's NPC clerk welcomed him into the store with the warm courtesy he had long since come expect from the NPCs in the game.

As soon as he got a good look around the store, Harry felt his hopes of finding Bows and Arrows for sale start to wither. It wasn't so much the fact that those two items were not on display that had him feeling discouraged; they hadn't exactly been on display the first time he set foot in the shop, after all. No, it was the fact that the variety of Items that the shop had in stock was far more limited than what he remembered it being from previous visits that really bothered him. And the reason it bothered him so much was because this shop was known to sell the less popular weapons and tools.

After a quick check of those items that were tucked away in the back of the shop, Harry nervously approached the clerk at the counter and the moment the man saw him, he asked, " _How may I be of service, customer-san?_ "

" _I want buy Arrows,_ " Harry hesitantly answered in broken Japanese. He was rather lucky that the NPC was programmed to respond to key words rather than proper grammar; otherwise he never would have been able to buy or sell anything in the game. In this case, the clerk responded to the words 'buy' and 'Arrows'.

" _Sumimasen, customer-san; we don't carry that Item in stock._ "

" _I want buy Short Bow._ "

" _Sumimasen, customer-san; we don't carry that Item in stock._ "

" _I want buy Longbow._ "

" _Sumimasen, customer-san; we don't carry that Item in stock._ "

Harry hesitated a moment before he requested, " _I want buy Crossbow._ "

" _Sumimasen, customer-san; we don't carry that Item in stock._ "

Harry stared at the NPC for a full minute as he tried to ignore the way his stomach had twisted up in knots in response to hearing the same answers he'd heard from every single NPC clerk he'd approached over the past two days. He then abruptly turned his back on the clerk and stalked out of the store without another word and without acknowledging the clerk's parting response. The scene would be repeated countless times throughout the morning as Harry hit every single NPC owned or run store in Hajimari.

He hit up the NPC owned blacksmiths in the afternoon with the same results. Even worse was the fact that none of the blacksmiths had been willing to make him a new Bow or Arrows either; every single NPC Blacksmith he'd approached had claimed not to know how to make Bows or Arrows. There were also no actual Bowyers or Fletchers to be found in the game and Harry wasn't certain they had ever existed in the first place since he'd never had cause to try and find one during the past two months or even during the Beta Test.

Frustrated and more than a little desperate now, Harry reluctantly turned to the Player owned stores in Hajimari. Sadly, Harry wouldn't have any better luck with the Player Merchants than he'd had with the NPC Merchants. The Merchants he approached were at least polite when they informed him that they couldn't help him. The Blacksmiths he approached, however, were a completely different story when he started seeking them out after he'd failed to find a Player Merchant that sold Arrows.

A few of them just laughed him out of their shops (or stalls). Others derisively just told him to get out of their shops and quit wasting their time. And the rest of them called him names; the nicest of which was a fool. None of them seemed interested in giving him any reasons as to why they wouldn't sell or make him Arrows though and all of them told him he was better off taking up the sword or locking himself up in town. Harry would even be physically ejected from the last smithy he'd tried.

"… _out and don't come back! I have no interest in wasting my time or my Skill Slots on a baka who insists on playing around with a kiddie toy instead of using a real weapon!_ " the blacksmith that had just shoved him out of his shop snarled before he slammed the door in Harry's face and locked up his shop.

Harry's face burned with embarrassment as a number of the Players that had witnessed him getting tossed out of the store laughed at his misfortune. Ducking his head so that he wouldn't have to look at the people making fun of him (their behavior sharply reminding him of his relatives), Harry turned on his heel and made to leave the city in order to find a place where he could sit down and panic in private. He'd barely taken two steps before he crashed into another person and ended up on the ground in a tangle of limbs that only drew more laughter from the crowd.

"Bloody hell!" Harry muttered under his breath as he rolled over and sat up so he could rub at his head where it had struck the ground just seconds earlier.

The blow hadn't really hurt but that wasn't what was really bothering him in the first place; his thoughts still firmly lodged on the fact that no one was willing to make him any Arrows. Harry was drawn out of his thoughts when he heard a groan from beside him and he suddenly recalled that he'd run into someone else. He glanced to his left to find the person he'd bumped into only for his gaze to land on a pair of bare, pale legs topped with white knickers surrounded by a heavy-duty material in dove-gray.

It took several seconds for Harry to realize exactly what he was looking at and when he did, he flushed bright red and snapped his eyes shut as he turned his back to the girl he'd knocked over before he hurriedly stuttered out, " _Su…sumi… sumimasen. Sumimasen…_ "

" _It's fine, it was probably my fault anyway; I was too busy gawking in response to seeing you get tossed out of that shop to notice that I was standing right in your way,_ " the girl insisted as she cut off Harry's apology.

Harry didn't really know what to say in response to that so he merely repeated an awkward, " _Sumimasen._ "

" _Didn't I just say it wasn't your fault?_ " the girl huffed and Harry hunched his shoulders around his neck as he heard her moving around behind him for a moment before he practically felt her eyes land on his back.

" _Sumimasen._ "

" _Is that all you have to say?_ "

" _Sumi… sumimasen,_ " Harry nervously offered in reply to her question.

To his surprise, the girl laughed in response to his latest apology and Harry tentatively glanced over his shoulder to find the girl facing him as she knelt on the ground with her feet spread out to either side so that she was practically sitting on the street and her hands covering her mouth as she continued to laugh. He was more than a little relieved to note that he could no longer see her underwear (that had been gross and embarrassing!) and he glanced up to see if she was an NPC or a Player only for his eyes to get caught on her bubblegum pink hair.

He'd never seen anyone with hair that color before and he couldn't help but stare at her hair for a long minute before he realized what he was doing and flushed bright red yet again. Feeling rather self conscious over the way he was behaving, Harry quickly turned away from the girl and awkwardly climbed to his feet while being very careful not to look at the girl again lest his staring upset her. He then took two steps away from her to put a little more distance between them and turned his head just enough so that he could see her right foot.

" _Sumimasen,_ " Harry repeated one last time before he hurried away.

" _Chotto matte!_ "

Harry attempted to ignore the girl's call only for her to catch up to him a few minutes later and pull him to a stop when she grabbed hold of his left elbow. Pulling his arm free, Harry spun around and glanced down at the girl; his Avatar a good eleven inches taller than the girl's Avatar though he knew that she was probably far older than him (and much taller than his real self) despite the fact that it didn't look that way from everyone else's perspective.

" _Why'd that guy throw you out of his shop?_ "

" _I make him angry. He not want make what I want buy,_ " Harry replied as he glanced up from the girl and scowled back in the direction of the most recent smithy he'd just been tossed out of. " _No one want make what I want buy._ "

" _No one want make…?_ " the girl slowly repeated; the sound of her voice drawing Harry's gaze back to her and he found her frowning up at him. " _You have a really funny way of speaking._ "

Harry glanced away from her in embarrassment over his poor Japanese before he muttered, " _Sumimasen._ "

The girl let out a snort of amusement in response to his latest apology before she asked, " _Why are you apologizing this time?_ "

"Because I don't know how to speak Japanese all that well," Harry reluctantly replied in English when it didn't seem like the girl was going to let him slink away without answering her question.

"That only make us even; I not very good speak English either," the girl countered with another laugh before she stuck her hand out and switched back to Japanese as she stated, " _My name is Lisbeth_."

"I'm Joe," Harry shyly offered in return as he reached up to nervously rub the back of his head; an unconscious move he made in order to avoid shaking her hand. "Joe Bloggs."

Lisbeth dropped her hand a heartbeat later when it was obvious he wasn't going to shake it (though she didn't seem all that bothered by his unintentional snub) before she asked, " _So, what was it you've been trying to get someone to make for you?_ "

Harry scowled as he shifted his gaze back to the darkened window of the blacksmith shop he'd just been kicked out of as his thoughts abruptly returned to his recent inability to get his hands on some better Arrows. He just didn't understand why no one was selling or making Bows and Arrows any more. It wasn't like he was the only archer in the game. He was also pretty certain that he wasn't the only Ranged Fighter in the game. In fact, he knew there was at least one other guy who was a Ranged Fighter. He was a member of that group that the Klein guy he'd spoken to a while back was part of.

" _Joe-san…?_ " Lisbeth prompted when Harry didn't answer her right away.

" _Arrows,_ " Harry finally answered as he returned his gaze to the pink haired girl. " _No one sell Arrows. No one want make Arrows neither. Not NPC. Not Player._ "

" _You're a Ranged Fighter?_ " Lisbeth asked with some surprise. " _Did you just switch over or something? I could've sworn that the last Ranged Fighter had died or switched over to Melee Fighter by the second week of December because Melee Fighters have a higher base Defense Stat and are far more capable of defending themselves at close range._ "

" _Iie,_ " Harry replied as he shook his head no. " _I only fight Bow and Arrows._ "

" _Really? What have you been doing for Arrows for the past month then? I'd heard rumors that Monsters Drops stopped generating Arrows the moment the number of Ranged Fighters dropped below fifty at the beginning of last month. I also know that all of the NPC shops and smithies on the First and Second Floors stopped making and selling projectile weapons around the sixteenth of last month and the Player shops stopped shortly after that. The Third through Seventh Floors shops would've stopped making and selling them within five days of being unlocked due to no one buying them._ "

" _I… I not know that. I not know where buy Arrows if no one sell._ "

" _You could always switch over to Melee Fighter and buy a sword instead._ "

" _No! I not like fight sword. I not good fight sword,_ " Harry countered with another sharp shake of his head. He then reached up to scrub at his face with both hands as he tried to figure out what he was going to do now. After a couple of minutes, he dropped his hands and stared at the girl who'd just told him the bad news as he blurted out, " _There has be somewhere, someone able make or sell Arrows. There has be other Ranged Fighter other than I._ "

" _Gomen, Joe-san; I'm pretty certain that you're the last archer in the game – all of the others either died or switched over to the Melee Class after a close call during a fight due to the fact that nearly all of the Monsters in the game are Melee Fighters and Ranged Weapons are pretty useless when fighting Monsters up close or when facing large groups of monsters._ "

* * *

 **Translations:** Japanese to English

Baka – idiot  
Chotto matte – wait a minute!  
Hajimari no Machi – Starting City or Town of Beginnings  
Sumimasen – I'm sorry (formal)

 **Game Terminology:**

Aincrad – **A** n **Inc** arnating **Rad** ius (the name of the Castle that is SAO)  
Attributes – are the 'inherited' or 'natural' characteristics that all Players, NPCs, & Monsters are given in an RPG game (examples include Strength, Defense, Agility, etc.)  
Avatar – the term for a playable character that a player uses during game play  
Defense Stat – a Character Attribute that reduces the amount of damage a Player receives when hit with an attack; the higher the Stat, the lower the amount of damage  
Dungeon – an area within the game where players can attack or be attacked by Monsters (or other players)  
Experience Points – the points earned for each quest completed and each Monster killed  
HP – **H** it **P** oints: the number of Life Force/Life Points/Health Points a person has  
Melee Fighter – a warrior class character that fights up close (usually with hand to hand combat or a hand-held weapon designed for slashing, stabbing, or bashing)  
Melee Weapon – a weapon designed for close combat (sword, knife, club, staff, etc)  
NPC – **N** on- **P** layer **C** haracter  
Ranged Fighter – a warrior class character that fights from a distance  
Ranged Weapon – a weapon designed to strike from a distance (bow & arrow, catapult, gun, etc)  
XP – Experience Points

 **Notes:**

Bowyer – a person who makes Bows  
Fletcher – a person who makes Arrows

On Items and Blacksmiths – Okay, I can see some people complaining about me having the game discontinue selling a weapon or having the other players refuse to help Harry. My reasoning for the former is because most in-game stores don't all sell the same products and the further you go in the game, the less likely you are to see products that were for sale at the start of the game unless you go back to the places you got them. Only, I had projectile weapons discontinued once the number of Players classed as Ranged Fighters dropped below fifty since it seemed like something that Kayaba (and the other game designers) would do to make the game harder.

As for the attitudes of the other Players; I imagined that far too many people would not want to be bogged down making a single type of weapon for a single Player when it would hamper their other Skills (since they have a limited number of Skill Slots available, unlike Harry). Or take up limited space in their Inventories when there was basically no demand for that product. So, they turned Harry away and because he wouldn't have been able to fully understand them or make himself understood, he would have been kicked out of their shops for wasting their time.

And for the record; no, he didn't encounter Agil and if he had, I imagine that Agil would've helped him because that's the kind of person Agil was in canon. Agil wasn't one of the Merchant Players he encountered that day though since the dude was off swinging his ax about somewhere earning money and leveling up so he could resume helping others.

For anyone who wants to complain about the serious lack of ranged players; I will blame it on the hype of the game being called **Sword** Art Online, far too many people having one too many close calls (like a few of Harry's where he only survived by the skin of his teeth), and the constant fear of dying. So, while being a ranged player in a _normal_ game might be easy to level up and improve, the fact that death in SAO means death for the players would seriously hamper their decision to stick with it out of stubbornness like Harry is doing.

So no, not bashing ranged players or Harry for their choices here. I'm actually speaking from experience as I _always_ died while using the bow in Fable (the Lost Chapters) during a battle against multiple enemies. I'm a melee fighter and I prefer battle axes unless I have magic/mana available and then I like lightning. So yeah, that's why Harry is the Last Archer for this run through of SAO.

* * *

 **AN:** _Chapter 11 will be posted next Sunday as I've not yet finished the chapters I'm working on for Hunter x in the x Making, Epic Adventure, or Banished Destiny; which are the three stories I'm concentrating on right now. Progress has been slow though as I spent most of the last week or two playing with my camera instead of writing. Doesn't help that none of my muses feel like working, the lazy bums. Ah, well, I'll figure something out here soon.  
_

 _ANYwho, thanks for reading/reviewing/following/favoriting/etc... Updates as usual are on my author's page though there hasn't been many changes between this month and last month. ~ Jenn_


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